


Earth-Dolven

by Kitkatkimble



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Art and Fic, F/M, Hazel is the greatest, Nico is a damsel in distress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2183961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitkatkimble/pseuds/Kitkatkimble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hazel Levesque is a witch. She is a witch in a city that has banned magic. Her brother is never around, her warrior training isn’t going too well, and she’s getting more paranoid by the minute, due to the atmosphere in the city of Jupitus; at least Frank is as steady and reliable as a rock. Then Nico goes missing, there are rumours of a rising evil in the Titanikós Mountains, and she decides that it’s a good idea to go on a quest to rescue him, because she’s just nice like that.</p><p>Or, Hazel goes on a quest to save her brother, and picks up a few friends along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hazel Levesque, Prophetess Supreme

A door opens, and a small figure stands in the entryway, sword drawn and stance tight. One hand is clenched tightly around the hilt of his black blade and the other gestures expansively to the side as the ground shivers beneath his feet.

His footsteps are quiet, but ring loud in the eerie silence of the hall. Grey banners hang still, until a breeze catches them and sends them into a dance, twisting and twirling around each other as the boy walks forward.

The doors clang shut behind him, and he starts.

A deep chuckle fills the hallways. The boy seems to regain some of his nerve, although he doesn’t look pleased at the sound; if anything, his eyes grow darker, madder.

“The doors do not open for just anyone, little mage,” says a voice. It is dark, deeper than the earth and older than time. “Who are you?”

The boy does not answer, but he walks forward and approaches the dais at the end of the long corridor.

“A mute? Or a fool? Which is it?” There is another earthy chuckle. “No matter. You are all fools, in the end, to think you can best death.”

He stops at the altar, crouching and examining the runes encircling the base. They entwine around the dais like a spell, only he can recognise spellwork and this is not it. This is something older, something more primal and intricate than a spell or a curse.

“ _Ki eiri alleth,_ ” the boy mutters, the strange language rolling off his tongue with a faint wisp of anxiety.

“Yes,” affirms the voice. “I have not heard that tongue in a long time, little one. How old are you?”

The boy stands and looks around, as if searching for the speaker. “Why do you hide?”

“Hide?”

There is a strong gust of wind, and the boy raises an arm to protect his face. The banners snap against the walls.

“I do not _hide,_ mortal.”

The doors at the end of the hall begin to rattle on their hinges.

“I _wait._ ”

The boy spins lightly on his heel and dashes for the exit, but with a heaving noise the stone floor separates, leaving a chasm between him and the doors. He staggers back, a hand splayed out for balance, and gasps as further cracks form in the floor. With frantic gestures he tries to mend them, to regain some form of stability, but with a roar a final hurricane of wind rushes through and knocks him off his feet.

Everything goes still.

“And I have waited for a very, very long time.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Jupitus is not a city conducive to fair treatment.

That’s a fact that Hazel has pretty much grown up knowing, and she’s perfectly accepting of it as a part of her daily life. It’s not nice, it’s not fair, but it is, so there’s not much she can do about it without going against some of their core principles: law, and justice. Neither of which end up being particularly fair, especially in a more heavy-handed society.

But, Hazel isn’t exactly a revolutionary, and so she resigned herself long ago to living with minimal use of magic.

She still uses it occasionally, of course. It’s hard not to, because magic is closer to a sense than a skill. It comes instinctively to those who can use it, and refraining from doing so is like clamping down on years and years of developed instincts. As it stands, however, she uses it only when she knows she’s alone, and sometimes when she’s with Frank.

Frank is wonderful. That’s probably the best word to describe him, as Hazel is pretty sure he doesn’t appreciate being called adorable. He’s a legionary like her, and she’s known him for a while now. He was one of the few people she made friends with first, just after Nico had brought her to Jupitus. He isn’t good with a sword, but Gods forbid you get on the wrong end of his bow; she’s seen him practicing often, and his skill is phenomenal.

He’s the only person who knows she’s a mage. He found out himself, because contrary to popular belief, Frank is not stupid. He’s actually surprisingly clever, but like Hazel, people often underestimate him. But he’s also trustworthy and loyal to a fault, so when he found out, Hazel wasn’t as worried as she thought she would be.

Even Nico doesn’t know she’s magical, which is surprising as he’s her brother. At least, according to him, he is. Hazel hasn’t ever received corroboration on that. Even if he isn’t biologically, he feels like family to her now. He doesn’t live in Jupitus; Hazel’s not sure he actually lives anywhere. She doesn’t know much about Nico, come to think of it, but she loves him anyway.

Except, he has this nasty little habit of getting into trouble and needing someone else to help him out of it. He’s a regular damsel in distress, is Nico, only he’s also immensely proud – or wary, Hazel’s not placing money on either – and the only person he ever asks for help from is, of course, Hazel.

Which is pretty much how this starts.

Hazel and Frank are sitting on the roof of the barracks; the great, organised sprawl of Jupitus is spread before them, although admittedly most of it is obscured by fog. Jupitus is beautiful, in its own way. It had been planned before it was built, as evidenced by the clusters of buildings; an area of temples, of restaurants, of shops. Beautiful in its order.

Hazel sits next to Frank on the terracotta tiles, cross-legged and dressed in a tunic and leggings. Her hair, usually bound back tightly, is loose and curling around her face in a halo of golden brown.

Frank is dressed in his armour, having just come back from patrol, and is stretching the knots out of his back as he relaxes. He had brought a bag of roasted chestnuts up with him earlier, and he and Hazel take turns tossing them off the roof.

“So,” says Frank, “I heard the King’s going to start organising a courier to Half-Blood Peak. There’s a chance that they might actually get through negotiations for an accord.”

“Not with Octavian in power.” Hazel tosses a chestnut shell off the roof. “He’s too paranoid and wary of any outside force deciding to invade.”

“True.” Octavian is not particularly well liked, but there’s no denying that he’s powerful, or that he’s unlikely to move from his position as High Prophet. The title sounds a lot more grandiose than the position itself; as far as Hazel’s aware, all he ever does is sit around and occasionally make sacrifices in order to predict some suitably vague and ambiguous prophecy.

No, Hazel is not very fond of Octavian.

It’s always amusing to watch Queen Reyna take him down a peg or two, though. Hazel has a lot of respect for the Queen.

She shifts in her seat, leaning to dangle her legs over the edge of the roof. “We have patrol tonight, don’t we?”

Frank nods. He has a strange patrol schedule; he has several shifts a day for half the week, and then barely any for the other half. Hazel’s is more regular, although she tends to look forward to the ones she shares with Frank more. It’s not that she doesn’t like her other patrol partners. It’s just that Frank is better.

They sit there, just eating chestnuts and wasting time, until Frank stands up and stretches. “We should probably get going. They’ll be wanting help in preparing dinner, and if we stay here any longer, we’re going to be late.”

They’re late anyway, but thankfully dinner didn’t need their help, and no one holds it against them.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“It’s too dark. I don’t like it.”

“Frank, it’s nearly midnight. Are you sure it’s not just cloud cover?”

A head shakes. “It feels wrong.”

“Alright. What should we do?”

“Is your brother here?”

“I haven’t heard from him in days. I don’t think he’s even in the country.”

“Should we tell Commander Terminus?”

“I…it might be nothing.”

“You’re right. We should investigate before we tell him.”

Frank turns to go, but a shimmer of movement catches his eye just as Hazel grabs his arm.

“There’s something over there,” she hisses, and they drop into a combat stance, reaching for their weapons.

The rustling from behind the bushes grows louder. Frank nocks an arrow.

Hazel moves forward and reaches out with her sword point to prod the bushes. The movement ceases, but within a few seconds Frank can hear rustling from behind him.

They move as one, swirling around to face absolutely nothing. There is no sound, no movement, and not a speck of light.

It’s too dark, and Frank doesn’t like it.

“Frank,” says Hazel very slowly, “I think we need to move out. There’s something about this that doesn’t feel right.”

He can feel exactly what she means, and so he begins tracing his steps back along the patrol route, his bow nocked and eyes darting. The weight of the air feels different on his shoulders, like the darkness is somehow heavier.

The rustling starts again, this time just off to their left, and Frank can see Hazel’s muscles tense up.

“Do you still have your lamp?” she asks, very quietly so as not to make more noise than strictly necessary.

Frank nods, then replaces his bow and quickly lights the lamp. It illuminates the forest around him, lighting up the dark woods and thick canopy; nothing more is evident.

“Nothing.”

Hazel shakes her head. “That’s not right. It can’t be right. I can feel it, it’s like there’s… there’s some kind of mist descending.”

As the words escape her lips, Frank catches glimpses of tiny motes in the air around them, dancing in the lamplight and flitting around the trees. It’s difficult to tell precisely what they are, but they coalesce in the same manner as mists and fogs. Hazel notices them as well, as she reaches one hand up to run her fingers through the cloud, bringing it away coated in shimmering light.

“I don’t understand,” Frank says.

“Neither do I, Frank. Neither do I.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

They don’t end up telling Terminus. Mainly because Hazel isn’t convinced that he’ll actually do anything; his position is less action and more politics, much to many of the new recruits’ dismay. He’s also rather cantankerous, and never really enjoyed fighting to begin with. It makes Hazel wonder a little about how he managed to get to that rank in the first place, but stranger things have been known to happen.

The rest of the morning passes easily, and if it weren’t for Frank’s constant yawns, there would be nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, nothing ever stops at ordinary, so just when Hazel thinks she can relax, a small boy with a threadbare cap comes running up to her and Frank.

“Are you Hazel Levesque?” he asks with a gap-toothed grin.

“That’s me,” she says, leaning down. “Can I help you?”

“I’ve gotta note for you.” The boy passes her a scrap of paper, and Hazel opens the note, glancing over its contents eagerly. Her hope for good news from Nico is only partly fulfilled; it’s from Nico, but the entirety of the note reads;

‘Hazel, I screwed up. I’m in the Titanikós Mountains, please help – Nico’

She looks up at Frank. “We need to go and help him.”

“Let me see the note,” Frank requests, and she passes it to him. His expression becomes a strange mixture of dubious and concerned. “What did he do? Do you know what he was doing up there?”

“No,” she says, running her hands through her hair. “He doesn’t tell me where he goes or what he does, you _know_ this.”

“We’ll have to find some way to get there and find out.” He sits down on the edge of the wall and looks at her. “How can we help him?”

She makes a split second decision and blurts out, “I’m going to go and find him.”

“Hazel, the Titanikós Mountains are hundreds of kilometres away, and they’re enormous. Where do we even start?”

She paces, trying to dispel some of the nervous energy in her stomach. Her mind is racing, her hands moving aimlessly, and the steady pattern of up, down, up, down, makes her relax somewhat. “We’ll need to ask the Commander for permission to go and search. You’re better at talking to him than I am, but I’ll do it unless you really want to.”

“Together,” Frank says. “Then when they need details filled in, you can be there to help.”

“Alright. Then…” Her mind comes up blank. “I don’t know. We’ll think of something.”

“If we can search, and the Commander lets us, then we should go to the bigger villages in the mountains and ask if they’ve seen Nico,” he suggests. “We could figure out where he’s been and if people know where he’s going to or where he went next.”

Hazel nods, sitting down next to him. “Thank you, that sounds like a good idea. How long does it take to get to the mountains from here?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Frank scratches his head. “Maybe two weeks on foot?”

“That could be too long. We can ask for horses or a chariot, can’t we?”

“Horses. We’ll cover ground way faster.”

She nods, and she’s about to leap and go roaring off on a rescue mission when she remembers the strange dancing lights from last night. She isn’t sure whether it’s instinct, or intuition, or some kind of sixth sense, but she doesn’t think that it was a coincidence that she saw them just before she got that note. There was something almost supernatural about their appearance; a magic that she is not familiar with, despite being a mage herself. It unsettles her.

“Actually,” she says, “let’s wait.”

Frank gives her a strange look, but she doesn’t want to elaborate and he doesn’t press her to. Gods bless Frank Zhang.

She does her best to disappear for the rest of the day. For some reason, she doesn’t feel comfortable, not in the city and not in the forests around it. Frank follows her willingly, citing that he doesn’t think she should be going anywhere alone. Because it’s Frank, it isn’t from any doubt in her abilities; it’s part worry about her, and part worry in their lack of understanding of recent occurrences.

She sighs and looks back across the expanse of rooftops and fields.

The chill on the air gets more pronounced, and then the temperature drops abruptly. Hazel frowns, shaking her head and looking up at the sky. It’s technically still autumn, and winter is still a month off, so fluctuations as dramatic shouldn’t be happening yet.

She mentions as much to Frank, who promptly points out the hot summer they had just previously. “We thought it was weird then, but it didn’t turn out to be out of the ordinary.”

The temperature stays low for the rest of the week. Hazel’s pretty sure she’s never worn so many layers in her life; even so much as wandering down to the forum needs at least two tunics and a jacket, which looks ridiculous, but quite frankly everyone else is doing it too, so no harm done.

She’s honestly not sure that winter hasn’t started early this year, when one day she goes down to the well and nearly has a heart attack because the water in the bucket has frozen.

Frank just laughs and cracks the ice cover with a fist.

They don’t notice anything strange on their patrols. The fog that’s settled over Jupitus is no different from any other mist or haze, and the strange, glimmering motes don’t return. It’s a little difficult to navigate, and they get lost more than once while on patrol, but there aren’t any strange noises or disturbances. If anything, this worries Hazel more; there’s no such thing as a random occurrence, in her experience, and it’s beginning to feel wrong.

She doesn’t mention the prickling under her skin that she feels every time she goes on patrol.

It starts small. There’s a tingling in her fingertips when she passes out of the city borders, and it travels slowly up her arms as she does the circuit. By the time she’s reached the stables, she can feel it all through her torso. When she reaches the outermost edges of her patrol, the barren fields to the north, the prickling reaches such limits that when Frank nudges her, she can’t feel it. What worries her, however, is that she knows exactly what it is.

Magic is a contentious issue in Jupitus; or, at least, it would be if it were ever up for discussion. Technically, it’s banned. Maybe only using it is. Hazel’s not really sure about the details, although she should be. As far as she’s aware, a person is allowed to be magical, as long as they never use it. Magic has brought too much destruction and tragedy to Jupitus for the city to be accepting of its use.

So, of course, the second magic is involved in something, whether it be a campaign or issue or just an occurrence, people sweep it under the carpet with little smiles that say, ‘Talk about this and it’s _your_ head on a pike’.

Hazel is quite attached to her head and likes to think that it’s attached to her.

But that night, she dreams.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

She is standing in a sea of red.

The high rock walls surrounding her are red; the shifting sand beneath her feet is red; even the sky is red thanks to the sunset spilling across its edges.

She keeps walking at a swift pace, quickly and lightly with professional agility. Her goal is the inner area, where the tomb of something ancient and lost to time lies. The light spilling from the rapidly darkening sky is nowhere near enough to see properly, but her eyes are used to it.

Soon she reaches the doors. They are cut directly into the rock, with various glyphs etched onto their surface. Either side of the doors is also covered with inscriptions, all detailing various scenes from the history of the area. But she isn’t interested in the writing, she is here for the tomb.

She pushes open one of the doors carefully and warily. The dust on the floor is undisturbed. Either no one has entered this tomb since its creation or whoever had done so did a long, long time before now.

She lights a torch and shuts the door behind her. She doesn’t want anyone surprising her, and she knows the opening of the door will disrupt the entire crypt’s light balance, so as long as she keeps it shut, she will know if someone opens it again.

She creeps along corridor after corridor and eventually comes to a large hall. It is only lit by a single shaft of waning sunlight coming in from a skylight in the roof. In the centre is a pedestal; it is barren. The walls are smooth and clearly no traps or doors have been installed into them. She goes around the chamber a few times anyway, for one can never be too careful and her profession is not one that allows for mistakes of any kind. One can be your last.

When she is satisfied that there are indeed no hidden blades, spikes, maces or other weapons of mass destruction, she approaches the pedestal. It is short and square, almost like an altar, but there are no markings or hieroglyphics on it at all. The light from the skylight hits it directly and illuminates it, making the rest of the room darker by comparison.

She kneels down and studies it from all angles. She notices a few faint lines on the very bottom edge and brushes some of the dust off.

_Fear that which the light consumes._

She frowns and mulls over the phrase for a minute. It is clearly a warning, but also a riddle. It names nothing, doesn’t specify what exactly it is talking about. Vagueness, however, is not such a difficulty. She has dealt with worse.

She glances up at the skylight. There must be some connection between the light from there and the pedestal, or else the architects wouldn’t have bothered to put it in. Everything, even the tiniest detail, can hold a wealth of importance and information.

Light consumes the pedestal. Therefore, she should fear the pedestal. But not all of the pedestal is illuminated, so the words are clearly not referring to it.

Maybe there is something _on_ the pedestal, or had been. She places a hand in front of the beam of light and is rewarded with a sudden flash of gold. She moves entirely in front of the light and examines the object revealed, taking in its appearance and checking for more traps.

Once assured there are none she picks it up. The gold shines in the darkness, which worries her. Gold shouldn’t shine like that without light hitting it. Perhaps…

She shakes the thoughts out of her head and quickly packs her things, wanting nothing more than to leave the dusty old tomb behind her. Her work is finished, and she is taking a risk simply by staying inside longer than necessary.

Without a backward glance at the red rock she sweeps out of the doors and back to the sea of red she started from.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -          

She wakes up abruptly, her hair springing up like a dandelion. She takes a moment to calm down, to run her palms over her face and regain some form of composure, before throwing on what clothes are in reach and running out to find Frank.

Frank, as it so happens, does not appreciate being woken up at four in the morning. But, bless his soul, he just sighs, pulls on a jacket, and follows Hazel. This may or may not occur after prolonged wheedling.

“Something is seriously wrong,” she says when they reach their favourite spot on the roof. “I had a dream, just now, and… something’s wrong.”

“Alright. What can I do?”

Bless Frank Zhang and his friendship.

“How good is your geography?”

He blinks. “Not very. Why? Should we go ask permission to look through the library maps?”

“I had a dream. I saw… it was strange.” Hazel leans back, looking up and trying to pinpoint something useful. “Everything was red, I think it was in a desert. There was a cave, and a, an altar of sorts. I took a gold object from it, but I can’t remember what it was. And there was, there was a phrase, on the altar. ‘Fear what the light consumes’, I think. But it was real. It was just as real as if I was awake.”

“Is it…” Frank looks uncomfortable for a moment, eyes darting around to check for idle listeners. “Magic?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t control it.”

“It could be a vision. Like in the stories, how there are prophecies and stuff. It could be like that.” Frank leans over and rubs her shoulder. “It might not mean anything, either.”

“I just can’t ignore it. I get the feeling that something’s wrong.” She rubs her eyes and leans against his shoulder, trying to count the stars. It’s a technique she’s used before to get herself to go to sleep, and soon she finds herself burrowing into Frank’s side. “I still don’t know where Nico is, either. I think… I think it’s got something to do with that.”

“Think about it again in the morning.” Frank stands up and offers her a hand. “Come on, it’s freezing and there’s still a few hours of dark left.”

The streets are completely empty, and only a few lamps burn inside shop windows; the curse of the insomniac, or the Night Watch. A breeze rolls through the streets, and fallen leaves gather at their feet, dancing and swaying eerily. Hazel isn’t afraid of the dark, but she thinks she understands why some people might be.

They have just reached the intersection between the barracks and the forum when Frank stops, holding out a hand. “Wait.”

She holds her breath unconsciously, and quietly exhales at the realisation. She can’t hear anything, or sense anything. “Frank? What is it?”

“I can’t hear anything.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“There’s no sound.” Frank turns on the spot, eyes scanning the darkness. The fog has settled again, brought low by the cold temperature of the night. “No insects. No people. No wind. Nothing.”

Hazel strains her ears. There is a far off whine, like a dog’s, but otherwise – nothing.

“I hear it,” she murmurs, reaching for her sword until she remembers that she left it behind.

“Stay alert,” Frank says, then moves to continue slowly on their way. Hazel thinks she catches a glimpse of the sparkling mist once again, but when she focuses on it, it disappears.

The fog, and the paranoia, follows her back to her dreams.


	2. This is a Frank Zhang Appreciation City

“You know, there are probably better ways to get out of the city.” Frank looks around, staring into the fog. It thickened overnight somehow, and now he can barely see Hazel as she darts ahead towards where they think the stables are. It’s getting very difficult to tell.

“Yes, but horses are faster and they like me,” she says with a wide smile in his direction. The white of her teeth gleam in the shadows. She always looks excited when she’s around horses.

She disappears into the stables, leaving Frank to watch her back and keep an eye out for patrols. He can’t believe he’s doing this; he likes Jupitus, and while he doesn’t like getting made fun of for his choice in weapons, he isn’t suicidal. He doesn’t see a way that this can end well for either of them.

“Are you really sure this is a good idea?” he asks, leaning around the stable door.

Hazel looks back at him, and there is a strange sense of gravity in her gaze. “Nico needs me. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that this,” she gestures to the fog, “started just before I got that letter.”

There’s something about the mist that Frank doesn’t like. He isn’t stupid; far from it, he’s found that he has quite a good sense of intuition in some cases, and at the moment he has a feeling in his gut that is telling him to investigate further. There’s something ethereal about the fog – as if the strange sparkling motes weren’t enough to indicate that – and while he’s hesitant to say it too loudly, he is beginning to suspect that it’s supernatural in nature.

There’s the sound of a patrol passing a few blocks away, and Frank tenses, dropping into a fighting stance purely by instinct. “Hazel!”

“I heard,” she whispers back, and then abruptly goes silent, until the only noise is the snuffling of the horses and the clanking of the patrol’s armour.

They wait with bated breath as the soldiers march, and if it weren’t for the fact that Frank knows there are no patrols scheduled to visit the station until eleven, he would think that they were about to pass them.

Thankfully, the patrol doesn’t catch them. Frank doesn’t think they’d be able to talk their way out of it if they did; neither he nor Hazel has any capacity for lying. Intentionally withholding information, yes, but lying? Not so much.

“Can you help me with this?” Hazel says, voice muffled.

Frank peers into the stables, and sees Hazel trying to reach a bag of apples from a shelf that’s an easy metre higher than her head. He doesn’t laugh – no really, he doesn’t – and reaches up to snag the sack. “Trying to bribe them for friendship? I thought you said they liked you.”

“They like apple-bearing me more.” She feeds one of the apples to the stallion next to her. “Isn’t that right, Arion?”

He whinnies softly and eats the apple, munching happily.

“Plus,” she adds, “Arion’s fussy. He’ll only eat golden apples, which means that if you want him to let you ride him, you need to have a lot of them.”

Frank doesn’t doubt her. He’s heard a lot of horror stories about Arion the stallion. His penchant for golden apples – not actual gold, but famed for their rich yellow skin – is something that the entire garrison knows and is wary of.

“Here,” Hazel says. “I saddled Daisy for you. She’s much nicer, and she’s very sweet. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with her at all.”

Daisy is a dappled chestnut mare who takes one look at Frank and promptly dives at him, brushing her head against his shoulder like a cat.

“Are you sure she’s a horse?”

Hazel snickers, then stills. “Did you hear that?”

He freezes. Much like the other night, he can’t hear anything; not even the sound of a patrol in the distance. He shakes his head.

Hazel creeps forward, one hand on her sword and the other outstretched. Frank glances around the stables, checking the shadows, and then follows her out.

The mist has thickened ever further, and Frank wouldn’t have thought it possible if he weren’t seeing it with his own eyes. It lies over the street like a blanket of shimmering silver, unmoving, yet restless. He can’t see the buildings across from them; the taberna next door is a memory, not an image.

He reaches out a hand and moves it through the air, and he almost startles when the mist moves with it, following his movements. He draws his hand back. It’s damp, and shining with something more than condensation.

Hazel gestures to the end of the street, and then back at herself, and Frank nods. He moves in the opposite direction, keeping close to the walls of the stable, eyes peeled for anything even further out of the ordinary. There is a single dog’s bark, but apart from that, he hears nothing. It’s almost as if the mist is acting as a fog on the senses as well as over the city.

He looks down at his feet, and tendrils of mist follow each step, falling just short of wrapping around his ankles.

He keeps walking until he reaches the end of the street, then turns back. He can’t see where he’s going, and if it weren’t for the wall at his side, he would have no point of reference.

“I think it’s magic,” Hazel says when he reaches the stable doors again. “It’s not like any fog I’ve ever seen. Unless…?”

He shakes his head. “No, I haven’t either.”

They lapse into a nervous silence.

“I don’t like it,” Hazel says quietly.

“I think we really need to go look for your brother.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Nico di Angelo does not like mountains.

He does not like hills, he does not like peaks, and he sure as hell does not like steppes. His only saving grace is the cool grey of the rock at his back, which hides him far better than any field or forest could.

Usually, Nico goes south for the winter, because it’s warmer and sunnier and there are far fewer mountain ranges. He once stayed in Jupitus, but he eventually succumbed to wanderlust and hopped on the nearest cart to the river. At least, he calls it wanderlust. The main reason he left is really only because there was nothing to keep him there.

He’s never gone north for the winter, before now. He’s starting to remember why.

The ground beneath his feet shifts, and he crouches down, lowering his centre of gravity and trying to keep his balance on the precarious slope. It’s taken him nearly a week to descend from the peak, despite the three days it took him to climb it initially. The chill is soaking into his bones, and with each breath he takes, it freezes his lungs and stings his throat.

Nico really hates mountains.

The earth stops shaking, and he waits for a moment before clutching at the side of the cliff and swinging himself over, dropping several feet to the next tiny outcrop. Freak avalanches have blocked the larger, more stable paths up the mountains, and the route he had taken has been completely erased; if he hadn’t been climbing it previously, he would have thought it had never existed. As it stands, he now has to scale the sheer face on the other side of the mountain, and if he gets out with anything less than a broken ankle, he’ll count himself supremely lucky.

There’s a clattering from behind him, and he turns to see a tiny skeleton of what looks to be a large eagle. It’s empty eye sockets gaze at him respectfully, although perhaps with the slightest hint of disdain. Nico shakes his head. Skeletons can’t look disdainful. They don’t look anything, except for bony and dead.

“Hello,” he says warily. “I didn’t raise you. What are you doing here?”

There is fresh dirt still clinging to the bones.

The eagle steps forward, bones clicking on the rocky ground. Its beak opens and closes, a chattering noise that sounds like rocks falling over one another. It’s a sound that Nico has grown very familiar with.

He crouches down. “You can’t speak. You’re only a skeleton. Do you need my help?”

The bird watches him, cocks its head, then nods. It’s beak clatters again.

It takes a moment before Nico realises that it’s speaking in Morse Code. Click-clatter-click. He’s noticed skeletons speaking like this before, but never with such urgency and speed. It takes several goes before he can understand the full message.

‘Coming down the mountain.’

“What’s coming down the mountain? Is it…?”

‘Yes.’

He scratches the skeleton’s head absent-mindedly as he thinks. He’d known that whatever entity he’d awoken up there in the caves would eventually leave, he just hadn’t thought it would happen this fast. It’s only been a week.

Whatever it is, it’s strong.

The cave in the mountains could hardly be considered a cave, he thinks. It was more like an entrance to a subterranean city – and trust him, Nico knows what those look like – complete with hallways and catacombs and empty torch brackets. He hadn’t expected occupants.

He doesn’t know if this _being_ even counts as an occupant. Simple occupants generally don’t have decorated seals protecting them, or, as Nico is beginning to suspect, trapping them.

He really screwed it up this time.

The eagle chitters nervously, and he waves it away. It tries to take off into flight, but realises too late that it no longer has wings, and collapses into a pile of bones on a ledge below.

Nico is tempted to reanimate it again, but random necromancy is the reason he isn’t welcome in three cities and nearly twelve villages. He’s probably made enough stupid decisions this month.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“What if he’s hurt? What if he’s hurt and lost? What if he’s _dead_?”

“Hazel, I’m sure he’s not dead. It’s barely been a week. I’m sure he would have known better than to send a letter if it really was something that was urgent. It would have taken a week to get to Jupitus, and it takes about that long to get to the Titanikós foothills, so he couldn’t have been expecting an instant rescue.”

“I know, but it still worries me. He _never_ asks for help. You remember that time he came to visit last autumn on his way down south? He had a broken wrist and had lost half his body weight, and didn’t say a word.”

Frank doesn’t have an answer for that. “At least he was well enough to send a message. Maybe he just needs help fixing whatever he did.”

It sounds hollow even to him, but Hazel doesn’t comment. She just reaches to scratch Arion’s neck.

They left Jupitus the night before, barely an hour and a half after their escapade to the stables. Frank had left a note on the Commander’s desk explaining the situation and asking forgiveness, and then they had opened the stable doors and rode off through the mist.

It had been one of the most uncomfortable experiences of Frank’s life. The mist clutched at him, slipping and sliding off as they rode, and when they had breached the limits of the city and surrounding areas, it had abruptly dropped off.

He looks back towards Jupitus. The fog completely obscures the city from view, almost like a protective shield or bubble. He’s not sure how he feels about that.

“It’s definitely magic,” Hazel says, and for the first time, Frank can see tiny sparks at her fingertips. They are similar to the motes they had seen a few nights previously; Frank doesn’t know how he feels about that, either.

Hazel glances at her hands, notices the darting sparks, and purses her lips. They disappear instantly.

“So,” Frank says, changing the subject. “The Titanikós Mountains are huge. Do we have any idea where Nico is, exactly?”

“You saw the letter. There’s really no way to tell.”

He nods, thinking. Nico is unpredictable in his wandering, so other than a general location, Frank can’t think of a way to predict where he would go. “I guess all we can do is ask around.”

Hazel sighs, and Frank nudges Daisy to move up next to Arion. He leans over and comfortingly squeezes her shoulder; when Hazel looks over, he smiles.

“We’ll find him.”

“I know.”

She straightens and looks towards the trail. They are currently riding along the edge of the valley border, which sounds a lot nicer than it is. Sheer mountains are to their left, and fog enshrouded Jupitus is to the right. The trail – a beaten back ledge on the edge of an even slope – is wide enough for three horses side by side, but filled with potholes and uneven rocks. It’s an indication of how rarely anyone ever takes this route, if anything.

Frank has never really considered himself afraid of heights, but if this is a gentle slope, he’s not sure he wants to know what the Titanikós Mountains are like.

He takes out the map from his belt and stretches it out. “The closest village to the Mountains themselves is Camp Jehsaedh – that can’t be how you pronounce it, sorry – which is about six days away. If we push it, we could get there by evening on the fifth day, but I don’t know if Arion and Daisy can handle it.”

“Arion could,” Hazel says confidently. “I don’t know about Daisy. She doesn’t have the same endurance.”

“I think we should leave it, then. We’ll get there in six days, then we can ask around, see if anyone has any information about a slight man dressed in grey. Shouldn’t be that hard.”

“You haven’t tried looking for my brother when he doesn’t want to be found.”

“How do you know that?” He glances over. “That he doesn’t want to be found, I mean.”

“He never does.” Hazel adjusts her collar, looking upset. “I don’t know, he just frustrates me sometimes. Sorry.”

“I think siblings are supposed to do that.”

Hazel laughs, and Frank laughs with her. And, because the universe seems to have impeccable cosmic timing, the sun comes out from the cloud it’s hiding behind.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

The ride is boring. People tend to underestimate the sheer amount of riding present in adventures and the like, and the sad fact is, most of it is pretty damn boring. Unless trees and rocks just inherently fascinate you, which is not the case for Frank.

If it had just been him riding, he would have gone completely crazy. Thank the gods for Hazel.

They’ve been riding since midnight, and when finally the sun reaches its peak, Frank says, “Let’s take a break. There’s a stream just here, and it’s hot, and I’m sure the horses would appreciate it.”

Hazel nods and yawns; they barely got three hours sleep the night earlier before making off with the horses. Maybe not the most responsible behaviour, but Frank’s not sorry.

They let the horses loose, trusting them to remain nearby, and collapse at the bank of the stream. It’s a nice day, clear of the clouds that hung over them before, and Frank really begins to understand what made the fog so unbearable.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Hazel says, sighing and leaning back on her hands.

Frank nods, then feels the water with a hand. Judging it not to be too cold, he promptly takes off his boots and drops his feet in, sighing as the water streams past. Little eddies come into being as he wiggles his toes, and with a grin, he reaches out to snag a stone from the bottom.

Hazel’s never been good at skipping stones, but Frank’s been able to since his mother taught him when he was a kid. It’s one of the few things he’s good at.

They sit there for a good half hour, by Frank’s judgement, until Arion neighs loudly and comes cantering up to them.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Hazel asks.

Arion tosses his head towards the trail, almost as if he understood her. Frank wouldn’t be that surprised.

Hazel stands and leaves to investigate as Frank pulls his boots on again. He’s just fiddling with a little rock that got caught in the sole of one when she yells, panicked, “Frank!”

He looks up just in time to dive out of the way as an arrow embeds itself where he was sitting. He rolls, grabs his own bow, and reaches blindly out for where he discarded his quiver earlier.

He’s just quick enough to get to cover before another arrow flies after him, and another a second after that. They’re so rapidly paced that Frank would have thought that it was a different person firing, it if weren’t for the identical fletching.

Hazel bursts from the bushes next to him, crouched low and her cavalry sword out. Frank’s actually a little sorry that they weren’t on horseback, as he knows that the sword would be infinitely more suited to that than a guerrilla style fight on the ground.

“Who are they?” he asks, nocking an arrow and training his eyes on the direction the last arrow came from.

“Two riders,” she replies. “One with a longbow, I couldn’t tell their gender, and a man with an axe. They were riding along the trail and then the man pointed at Daisy. I don’t know what they want, but they’re definitely hostile.”

“Age? Experience?”

“Middle aged, heavily scarred.”

An arrow nearly takes the end of Hazel’s ponytail off.

“We can’t win. Grab Arion and run. Where’s Daisy?”

“She’s – ” Hazel dives to the side as another arrow comes screaming through. “Just around the bend, I sent her off as soon as I saw them.”

Frank looses his arrow, and he’s rewarded by a surprised shout. Maybe the archer wasn’t expecting retaliation. “Where did axe-man end up?”

“Don’t know.” Hazel darts out, ascertains that the coast is clear, then drags Frank out and breaks into a sprint. There’s little cover, but that works both ways – the archer is a good twenty metres behind them, and the axe-man is nowhere to be seen.

This worries Frank more than he tries to let on.

Arion gallops towards Hazel, and she swings herself up and into the saddle in a smooth, practiced manoeuvre. “I can see Daisy,” she says from the new vantage point. She whistles sharply, and Frank can hear the mare cantering around the corner before he sees her.

There’s a shout from behind them, and Frank turns, bow up and nocked with lightning quick reflexes.

The man with the axe has made an appearance, and is seemingly hell bent on making sure that he’s noticed. The axe is over his head, ready to swing, and Frank aims and fires in a blur of motion.

A roar of pain is all he hears before he’s turning and sprinting for Daisy. He’s nowhere near as graceful as Hazel, and trips on the stirrup. It’s actually fortunate that he does, as an arrow whistles over his head, just where his neck would have been if he had been successful.

He hauls himself over with a quick apology to Daisy, and he doesn’t even need to nudge at her sides before she’s galloping off down the trail.

Hazel is ahead of him, hair coming undone and trailing behind her. She nearly loses her grip when she reaches up to push it out of her face to glance behind.

“We’re clear!” she yells, but leans low in her saddle regardless. Frank mimics her movement, trusting her judgement more than his balance.

They stagger off the horses after what feels like an hour, but Frank doubts that it’s more than twenty minutes, as he’s found whenever he’s panicked, time seems to lengthen. Battle reflexes or training, he’s not sure; but it heightens his awareness of time, helps him make the most of each second.

Hazel falls more than climbs off the saddle, and Frank reaches out to steady her. “Do you think they’ll have followed us?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “They looked like ordinary bandits. They’re pretty common the further from the city you go. I think it’s best that we keep an eye out.”

“You’re telling me.” Hazel’s eyes narrow. “Nico is going to be in so much trouble when we find him.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Nico hunches into the crevice at his back, his charcoal vest blending into the surroundings and making him appear almost invisible. His hood is drawn, and to the outside observer, all that can be seen of his face is a pale chin and the gleam from the whites of his eyes.

Below him, winding through the valley between two mountain peaks, is a river of silvery fog. It creeps and winds through the mountains, swallowing trees and creating a deceptively serene blanket over the foliage. If it weren’t for Nico’s trained senses, he would have assumed it to be mist trapped by the morning heat.

But even from here, he can feel the taint of magic.

He’d been too high to see the original onset of the strange miasma, but now that he’s closer to the foothills, he’s beginning to wish he’d never climbed down. When he went searching for _ki eiri alleth_ – the first seal – he had thought it was an entrance to an underworld of sorts. He would never, not in a million years, have suspected that it would have been trapping something this big, this _poisonous._

Suddenly fear shoots through his spine. The note – he’d sent a note to Hazel just before he went running up the mountain. If she comes to the mountains…

No, he doesn’t want to think about it. Hazel would see the fog, see the avalanches; she would stay back. She is infinitely smarter than he is.

The sound of rocks shifting wafts to his ears, and he presses back into the cliff face as a couple of boulders pass by his nose. Every now and again he thinks he has gotten used to the constant rockfalls, but then another comes along and he changes his mind. It’s a hard life, being an idiot who lets loose primordial forces.

When he thinks the rocks have stabilised, he keeps moving, hands gripping the cliff face. He’s starting to wish he remembered to buy a new pair of gloves, but there simply hadn’t been time.

He turns a corner, and suddenly finds himself facing a large hold in the cliff side.

“More catacombs…?”

He feels for his sword at his hip, reaches out for the comfort of the dead beneath the earth, and steps forward.

It’s all very anticlimactic. Nico appreciates that. He doesn’t think enough people do – a giant centaur didn’t leap out at you? There weren’t any aboleths lurking behind the curtains? That wasn’t an orc in your shadow? Good. That’s one more minute you’re alive.

Nico would hate to make Hazel upset by dying on her. His mother taught him that it’s the height of impropriety to leave someone you love.

Then, because the gods love them some good irony, she was murdered.

Yes, that’s the punch line. Nico’s a necromancer. What do you expect?

He snaps his fingers, and his sword begins to swirl with dark energy, illuminating the cave. He can see the tunnels go on, leading away into darkness, but he’s reluctant to follow them. If his internal compass is right, he should be nowhere near a cave system; his geokinesis isn’t great, but it is certainly good enough to detect a series of caves this close.

It could be the magic mist interfering, but he doesn’t think that’s the only factor at play here.

He gently runs his fingertips along the walls, feeling the shifts in texture. Someone went to a lot of effort to make this cave seem natural, but he knows the underground, and he knows the difference between natural and hewn rock.

He unsheathes his sword, and lets the glow lead the way into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by the wonderful Jenna, who can be found on tumblr as bluefireeyes.  
> Writing by me, who is incredibly uncreative and on tumblr under the exact same username, kitkatkimble.


	3. Never Trust Imps With Machinery

Camp Jehsaedh is completely out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, which is great from a defence point of view, but really hard to get to. The Titanikós Mountains rise in the distance, and the plains around them are flat and even, dotted sparsely with trees and shrubbery.

Camp Jehsaedh itself is a mere blip on the horizon, a low level forest surrounding a larger town. There’s no source of water in sight, which Hazel finds odd; there doesn’t even appear to be a river or a reservoir, which in her opinion is always the first thing to look for when situating a village.

“Finally,” Frank mutters, and she turns to see him stretching his neck, regarding the view with no small measure of relief. She laughs and nudges Arion into a trot.

The slope down from the peak of the hill they just crested is smooth and gentle, and Hazel feels the difference all through her muscles.

“Have you figured out how to pronounce it yet?” she asks.

Frank snorts. “No. It’s Old Tongue, I think. Your brother would know, but I have no idea. Guess we’ll just have to ask someone when we get there.”

The gates are wide open, and Hazel can’t even see any sentries posted to guard them, which is an indicator of either incredible stealth or incredible laziness. She’s leaning towards the former; the walls are high and thick, although a few have been patched up recently, and there are plenty of slits for archers to aim through.

No one stops them when they ride in. It’s truly bizarre, and Hazel says as much.

“Maybe they’re just more relaxed here,” Frank says. “Or they’re waiting for us to do something suspicious.”

Hazel smiles at a passing stranger, who smiles back. “They seem friendly.”

“Everyone smiles back when _you_ smile at them,” Frank says dryly, but the slight emphasis on ‘you’ leaves Hazel blushing to the tips of her ears. Frank seems to realise what just came out of his mouth, and shortly turns a similar shade of beetroot.

Their ride to the nearest inn is deafening in its silence.

Camp Jehsaedh is almost like a ghost town. Hazel spots a few people running around, darting in and out of the houses that line the main street, but for the most part the town is quiet. It’s a startling difference to Jupitus’ orderly hustle and bustle, although she understands that smaller towns call for quieter life.

Suddenly, there’s a hiss from an alley, or at least the gap between two houses. The homes are oddly designed; they are all slightly sunken into the dry earth like little barrows, with curved roves made of painted brick. From above, Hazel doesn’t doubt that the entire village would blend into the surroundings.

Hazel frowns at the alley.

It makes a funny noise, and then she sees a slim-boned face peek out.

“You!” says the girl.

“Me?”

“Yes, you two!” She looks around, her movements flighty and birdlike. “Come, quick!”

Hazel shares a glance with Frank before slipping off Arion and following her into the alley.

When she turns the corner, she gets a decent view of the tiny girl, and then gasps. It’s difficult to focus on, but Hazel can make out dozens of beautiful red and gold feathers coming from the girl’s arms, and when she looks down, her feet are those of a bird’s.

“Mustn’t tell,” says the girl. “Ella will be in trouble if you tell.”

“Okay,” Hazel says shakily. “Okay, I won’t tell. But, is it… magic?”

Ella looks around furtively. “Not now, no time. The Imp is waiting.”

“The Imp?”

“With sails of wind and a dragon’s breath,” says Ella very seriously, “comes magic. She’ll be coming over the mountains when she comes.”

Hazel glances around, but there’s no one around, nothing and nobody to clue her in on what Ella is talking about. “I don’t understand. What are you saying? What magic? Magic is banned.”

Ella looks upset. “Blame the tool, pluck the feathers.” She abruptly stops talking and tenses, her skinny frame appearing even wirier as she bounces on her toes. “An hour from the wilderness. Find the Imp. Follow the sun. Use your feathers.”

With that cryptic advice, she disappears into the town.

Hazel is left standing there, staring at where Ella’s feathers have left a sparkling golden trail.

“Is everything alright?” Frank calls.

It probably isn’t, so she lies.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Nico is never going underground ever again. Never ever ever. He is going down South and he is going to the beach and he is never coming anywhere near Titanikós ever again. They have sunlight down South. All year. Sounds like perfection.

Then he remembers that all of this is his fault anyway, so he really doesn’t have any right to complain.

Every time the ground shakes – which it is doing much more often, as the hours pass, and Nico is nursing a growing fear in his gut – the ceiling of the tunnel loosens ever so slightly, raining down on Nico’s hood. There’s no light aside from the slight glow from Nico’s sword.

He can feel the ground beneath him gradually change in texture. It had started as hard rock, carefully cut away into a tunnel that to the untrained eye seemed natural. But there was no source of water, no explanation for its presence, and the further Nico followed it, the more he was convinced that it had been created intentionally. It was too straight, too accidentally even underfoot, for it to have been natural.

Now, it’s slowly edging towards earth, a rough floor of mingled rock and dirt. The colours are also growing warmer, as the cool grey of the rock edges, ever so slowly, into a deep, rich brown.

He finds it more than a little suspicious, to be honest. He doesn’t know where it leads, but he’s beginning to suspect that this is just one more occasion where he should have turned around straight after discovering it and gone, “Nope.”

He just hopes that the intended destination is outside, where there is a large sun waiting for him, rather than some dank cave somewhere.

A sound catches his ear, and he strains his hearing to make out, just on the edge of his perception, the sound of water hitting stone. It’s far off, yet, but the shape of the tunnel makes it echo back from wherever it originates from.

He picks up the pace a little.

The gradient of the tunnel suddenly changes, and he finds himself following a twisting route around in circles, going further down and down into the mountain. The floor shifts beneath his feet, and he crouches. The texture is earthen, but he can feel compost beneath his fingers; there are plants nearby. Plants, and water.

Finally – _finally,_ Nico _hates_ this place – he reaches the bottom of the spiralling path, and it spills out onto a mezzanine overlooking a tiny hidden valley.

He looks up.

“Stars…”

It can barely be called a valley, to be honest; Nico has seen houses larger than the clearing. The tiny dell is filled with trees and bushes, their leaves shades of green and purple, darkened by the night sky. There is a pool in one corner, with a spring that falls in a waterfall over the side. This, then, is the source of the noises he heard earlier.

He steps out, feeling the fresh air on his face, and he tugs his hood down. It feels glorious.

His footsteps make the slightest crunch as he makes his way down the path onto the main forest floor, approaching the pool. The moss adorning the rocks is soft to the touch, and the water is cold and clear, straight from the heart of the mountains.

Words are not enough to describe the glade, nor the sense of serenity that melts into his bones simply from standing in it.

It all vanishes as he feels the prick of a sharpened blade in the small of his back.

“Put the sword down.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Earthquakes are becoming frequent. There’s a tangible sense of discord in the air, if that makes any sense, and the magical saturation is thickening. It feels like mist on Hazel’s skin, now, as she moves.

“We won’t be able to ride through the passes,” Frank says. They’re sitting on the roof of the inn, and it feels like Jupitus again. “Not with these earthquakes.”

“I know.” She can feel it, her geokinetic senses tingling with each rumble. Her magic is slowly rising, becoming more difficult to control, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Do you have any other ideas?”

Hazel sighs and closes her eyes. “No. I don’t. We can’t go on foot, it’s too slow. We can’t take the horses. It’s not like we can fly.”

Frank’s eyes crinkle up at the corners as he smiles.

Then she remembers Ella. The feathered girl had been talking about an imp, which was a little bit worrying, but she had also said that Hazel should find them. “Follow the sun. Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Of course. It’s an expression; my grandmother used to use it often. It means to travel from east to west, like the sun’s arc.” Frank grins. “A lot of our patrols follow that route, but they stopped using the phrase to describe them years ago.”

“Really?” Hazel leans forward. “That’s neat.”

“Why d’you ask?”

“Ella, the girl in the alley, she said to find an imp, and to follow the sun. An hour from the wilderness, I think she said.”

“That makes sense.” Frank smiles proudly. “I was talking to the innkeeper about how to pronounce Camp Jehsaedh – don’t laugh, I can say it properly and you can’t – and he said that it means wilderness in the Old Tongue. So whoever this imp is, they’re an hour west of the town.”

“Frank,” Hazel says, very seriously, “you are a genius.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Nico doesn’t like being held up at sword point. Especially not when he thought he was alone; it’s been years since anyone has successfully sneaked up on Nico di Angelo.

“Alright,” he says slowly, putting his sword down gently. He has a knife in a sheath on his hip, hidden by his tabard, and if all else fails, he’s still a necromancer.

“Keep your hands where I can see them.” The voice, a man by the sounds of it, is strong, used to command. “Turn around slowly.”

He does. He doesn’t have much of a choice when he’s being threatened.

The owner of the voice and the very pointy sword is a tall, muscular blond with a jawline that could cut glass. He also has an odd aura around him, one that Nico can’t quite place. He’s dressed in the style of those from Jupitus’ patrol forces, but Nico doesn’t mistake the purple swath across his shoulder. This man is high ranking, possibly noble, definitely dangerous.

But, if he’s from Jupitus, then he’s probably fair.

“Who are you?” Blond asks.

“Nico di Angelo,” he replies, nearly putting his hand out on instinct before remembering the situation.

“What are you doing here?” Blond looks him up and down, probably trying to find some identifying insignia. Nico doesn’t have any. “Where are you from?”

“I’m an explorer.”

Blond nods, and drops the sword; Nico doesn’t assume that he’s off the hook. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

Nico shakes his head. Blond looks thoughtful. “Well, regardless. My name is Jason Grace, Commander of the Fifth Cohort of Jupitus, Titanikós Outpost.”

That explains a lot. It doesn’t explain why such a high-ranking officer is doing scout duty, but considering the entity that Nico let loose, it’s understandable. The earthquakes and strange mist are certainly dangerous enough to warrant serious examination.

Blond – Grace – looks at him expectantly.

Nico disappoints him. He just nods, acknowledging the statement and identity, then he eyes Grace’s sword warily.

“I’m not putting it away until I know your allegiances,” Grace says in a mild voice.

“I don’t have any,” Nico says, then stops. That’s not quite true. “I have an open relationship with Half-Blood Peak.”

Grace nods, accepting him on his word – why, Nico has no idea, because he knows he’s not trustworthy – and sheathes his sword. “Alright. It’s nice to meet you.”

Nico doesn’t break eye contact, but he leans down and picks up his own sword, sheathing it deliberately. The dark metal reflects the starlight in a wink of light, before being hidden. Grace backs away, his movements open and his every intent broadcasted as he sits down on a rock a few feet away.

Nico sits where he stands.

They stay like that, eyeing each other; Grace looks thoughtful, as if sizing Nico up. None of his conclusions show on his face.

For his part, Nico is suspicious. Admittedly, Nico is usually suspicious of strangers, so it’s not that exceptional. The only person he has never been suspicious of is Frank Zhang, and that is because Frank is as readable as an open book.

He has also never been suspicious of a particular dark haired, green-eyed menace, but that was a long time ago and he was young and impressionable. Or, at least, slightly younger and incredibly naïve, but what’s the difference?

“You were in the mountains when the earthquakes began?” Grace asks, breaking the silence.

“Yes.”

He nods, looking thoughtful again. “You’ve noticed the mist building up, then.” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “How did you find this place? Accident?”

Nico nods. “The tunnel entrance was suspicious.”

Grace smiles, and it’s an oddly wry look on such a serious face. “That’s what I thought, too, when I first saw it. This is Senn Shalis. We use it as a base camp for this part of the mountain range.”

Nico looks around pointedly at the lack of supplies or anything to signify human occupation.

“It’s well concealed.” Grace loses the smile, and his expression looks strangely put together, as though fragments have been glued together to create a mask. “We don’t need to use it very often. But after the earthquakes…”

He lapses into silence.

Nico reaches out with his senses, trying to identify the strange feeling that’s niggling at the back of his brain. There’s something off about Grace, something that doesn’t smell or sound or seem right.

It hits him as Grace shifts, exposing the edge of his sword sheath, and Nico can feel death.

He must have given something away in his expression, as Grace looks at him, and with that strange air of reasonableness, says, “What have you noticed?”

“How did you end up here, on your own?” Nico returns, voice quiet and even.

Grace tenses, then relaxes again, but the planes of muscle on his arms are taut. “I was scouting, after the earthquakes started.”

Nico knows he won’t get a better answer than that, so he lets the matter lie. He could find out, if he really wanted to know, but he isn’t inclined to risk getting stabbed. He has no doubts that he could win in a fight – Grace looks like the kind of person to fight with uptight honour and skill, whereas Nico isn’t afraid to get dirty – but for some reason, Nico feels like Grace deserves his privacy.

Perhaps it’s because he let Nico have his own. Nico appreciates that.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

An hour to the west of Camp Jehsaedh is a bunker.

It is sunken, like the houses in the main village, with a series of what looks like explosion remains dotting the surroundings. Hazel isn’t too sure what she thinks of it.

The door is open, and she peers through to realise that it’s not open, but blasted off its hinges.

That’s comforting.

“Hello?”

No one answers, but she can hear noises coming from somewhere (downstairs?) so she follows her ears down a series of stairs into a workshop. Boxes and drawers line the walls, and the room is dominated by what she can only think of as a Wondrous Device for Doing Things.

There is a loud bang, a whimper, and then a series of truly creative expletives that leave Hazel blushing to the tips of her ears.

“Excuse me?” she asks. “Hello? Is there someone there?”

It’s probably a stupid question, as obviously there’s somebody there or there wouldn’t be any swearing.

A messy head of dark curls pops up from behind the contraption. “Yes? Shit, did you hear that?”

She nods, still blushing, and approaches the boy. He looks like an imp, following what Ella had said, and the combination of his brown skin and slightly pointed ears remind Hazel of the elves from the stories. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself.” He stands up and moves over to greet her. He’s honestly one of the scrawniest people Hazel’s ever met, and Nico’s her brother.

“A friend told me that you had a way to get into the Titanikós Mountains,” she says.

The boy’s eyes light up. “You want to go to Titanikós?”

“My brother went missing.”

“Sure, I’ll help. I’ve been building a ship; she’s a beauty, wait ‘til you see her. But you won’t be able to pilot her on your own, you need me and my team.”

“Your… team?”

“Yep. Team Leo.” He takes off the strange glasses and grins at her, dark eyes sparkling with mischief. “That’s me.”

“I’m Hazel.” She shakes his hand, and her own comes back covered with grease. “Who’s your team?”

“Just me and a friend, don’t worry. But, if you want the Argo, you’ll need us.”

She frowns, and then shrugs and smiles. She hasn’t got another option, and if there is even the slightest chance that Leo will be able to help her find Nico, then she’ll work with him. It’s better than the alternative. “Let’s see the… ship first. I still don’t understand how it’s meant to work without magic, but I guess you can explain it.”

And explain it he does. Leo becomes bright and animated, speaking about his invention with fervour and the same love one might have when talking about one’s children. He talks to her about gold and bronze, about welding and techniques and all sorts of terms that Hazel doesn’t understand. She doesn’t ask for clarification; it would probably only serve to set him off onto even more tangents, so she just smiles and nods and is glad that Frank isn’t quite so talkative.

Not that she minds overly much. Leo seems nice, if a bit oblivious to social niceties.

He leads her deeper into the workshop, then stops at a large set of double doors. “This,” he says dramatically, “is where the real fake-magic happens.”

He pushes the doors open, and strides into the reveal chamber. Hazel follows robotically.

It’s enormous. It’s easily three times the size of his outer workshop, and houses an incredible shop build from sparkling bronze. The room is big enough to house both the ship and the supplies strewn out in seemingly random chaos. There are sheets of metal, planks of wood, and cabinets filled with tools and little bits and pieces that must have some technical name other than ‘doohicky’ and ‘thingamabob’, which they are labelled.

The ship itself is huge, with large sails and an ornately devised dragon for a figurehead. She almost jumps out of her skin when it turns its eyes to her and smiles; or, at least, as much as a dragon made from metal can smile.

“This is Festus,” Leo introduces. “He’s a dragon.”

“I can see that,” she says, holding a hand to her heart and feeling it beat rapidly beneath her fingers. “Is he real?”

“He’s real. Not alive; well, not really. He’s not an actual dragon. He’s an automaton.”

“What?”

“A mechanical being. I built him, fixed him up.” Leo makes a funny whistling noise and the dragon detaches itself from the prow of the ship. It moves with a strange, serpentine grace, which mingled with the clanking and mechanised movements, makes for a truly bizarre sight.

“He isn’t… magical?” she asks.

“Not that I know. Maybe a little bit. It’s hard to tell.” Leo reaches up and scratches Festus’ head. “Come on, I’ll show you the ship.”

He ushers her around the Argo, explaining how it works and where everything is. “I know it looks like a boat, but I’ve designed it to fly.”

“It flies?”

“Like a bird.”

She frowns and considers the possibility. “Isn’t that dangerous? Wouldn’t it be more likely to fall, given that it’s made out of metal?”

“Eh, it might. Same risks for any other way of transport. It’s probably even safer.” Leo eyes her, dragging his attention away from the inner workings of the engine room. “Where exactly are you going again? Because if it’s the actual mountain range of Titanikós, then you’ll definitely need the Argo. There’s been earthquakes and stuff, apparently, so taking the land route isn’t a good idea.”

She nods. “Alright. Have you got anything else you need to show me?”

“Not really. So, are you interested in being on this baby’s maiden voyage?”

“You’ve never flown it before?”

“It’s a she, and no, not technically.” Leo grins, and for a split second, he looks just that little bit insane. Hazel’s seen that manic fire in Nico’s eyes, and she’s seen it as tempered flames in Frank’s, and she shivers despite herself. “I guess we’ll find out if she works or not on the go.”

She looks at him, and weighs her options. “Okay. But if we die, I will come back to haunt you. Don’t think I won’t. I’ve encountered Death before, and trust me, I know how it all works.”

Leo laughs, gives the engine room a final once over, and ushers her out of his workshop.

It’s almost twilight by the time she meets back with Frank. A good three hours have passed while she was busy in Leo’s workroom, and it takes an hour to get back to the village itself. It seems as though the villagers knew to build Leo a workspace far away from any possible casualties.

“How was it? Did you get transport?” Frank asks. He glances at her and smiles. “Was he as mad as Ella said?”

He’s fletching more arrows for his quiver, his eyes focused on what he’s doing but still managing to eye her kindly and curiously. It’s always something she’s marvelled about Frank; he’s quiet and dedicated, for the most part, but manages to split his attention and still get things done.

“He’s a little bit mad,” she admits. “But he’s clever. He’s got a flying boat.”

“A flying boat?”

“Given the earthquakes, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea.” Hazel sits down next to him. “Can I help?”

Frank shows her how to make an arrow, guiding her through the process and helping her figure out how to fletch properly. She’s terrible at it, but he tries anyway, and they spend the evening laughing and revelling in each other’s company.

It’s nice. There’s really no other word for it. It’s just… nice.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Leo adjusts his goggles and scratches his temple. “Come on, Pipes, it’ll only be for a month, maximum. You’ve been talking about how you want to get out of here for ages.”

Piper, wonderful, wicked Piper, looks reluctant. It’s bizarre. “I don’t know, Leo. The reports coming back from the outposts aren’t good. I want to get out, and Gods, I want to go explore, but I don’t want to die. Even if I am friends with you.”

“Hey, I saved your life.”

“It was your stupid contraption that put it in danger in the first place,” she says dryly.

Leo can’t exactly argue with that. “Alright, fine. But the Argo is amazing. Really, she’s brilliant. Plus, I’ve got Festus as the helmsman, so how bad can it possibly be?”

“Festus is certainly a lot more reliable and intelligent than you are, you’re right.”

“Hey! I resemble that!”

“You _resent_ that, Leo.”

“I know what I said.”

Piper rolls her eyes, and her image flickers a little. “Let me think about it, okay? I’ve got a lot of deals going on right now, I can’t afford to lose on any of them.”

“Oh, please.” Leo waves a hand dismissively. “You could talk them over in your sleep, don’t even try to lie. Or is Princess Piper admitting defeat?”

“I’ll show you defeat when I whoop your ass tomorrow.” She smiles evilly and blows him a kiss. “Don’t lose your beauty sleep, you’ll need it.”

“I’ll have you know I look this devilishly handsome 24/7,” he says, ruffling his hair. “Au naturel, and all that jazz.”

“Yeah, right. Good night, liar.”

“See you tomorrow, princess.”

He presses a button and the image fades away, leaving him staring into an empty golden bowl.

“Well, this should be interesting.”


	4. Jason Grace and his Irrational Blondness Come to the Rescue

Jason Grace is very blond.

Normally, Nico doesn’t bother thinking about stuff like this. Only, Grace is so very, very blond that it’s hard to miss. His hair _glows_ in the starlight. Whose hair _does_ that?

He is tempted to get up and leave the dell, but he knows what lies back out in the mountain range itself, and if he can get a decent bit of rest before he roughs it again, he’ll be grateful. So he settles back against a tree, draws up his hood, and leaves his eyes half-lidded.

He doesn’t trust Grace as far as he can throw him.

The commander is currently doing a series of highly improbable stretches, or perhaps just enjoying a little jig and reel before setting into bed. It’s hard to tell, given the serious expression on his face. Maybe it’s a very serious thing, dancing. The only dancing Nico has done is with Hazel, because they both know some old fashioned dances and can do them with a fair amount of skill. Last Nico heard, Hazel was teaching Frank a few. He privately wishes her luck; he doesn’t mind Frank, but he does seem a little clumsy.

His nerves are tingling, and as the trees start to rustle thanks to a stray breeze, he feels nervous.

Something doesn’t feel right.

He feels for his sword, checking that it’s within easy reach and won’t be caught by the trappings of his clothing. It’s harder to ignore his suspicions, knowing how silent killers can be.

The susurration of the wind grows a little louder.

“Nico!”

He stands and twists in one smooth movement, his sword swinging around in a lazy arc and catching his assailant in the side. Up, down, up, feint left, swing right, and the figure is pushed out of the shadows of the boughs and into the starlight.

It’s a woman, wearing a vastly impractical dress in a shade of red that is just a little bit too close to blood. He glances down to check, and his insides curl as he sees little drops falling from the hem. Her expression is murderous.

He catches a glimpse of Grace moving forward out of the corner of his eye, as if to attack, but he shoots out a hand and gestures for him to keep back. “She’s a Kindly One,” he says, remembering the name that Jupitus used. “Stop.”

Surprisingly, Grace does, although while his posture relaxes somewhat, his grip on his sword doesn’t. He looks convincing enough, but to the Fury’s perception, Nico doesn’t think it will make that much of a difference.

“What are you doing in this place?” she demands. “You have no right to be here! Begone!”

“Are we standing on sacred ground?” Nico asks.

She looks utterly affronted, then her gaze turns steely, and Nico sees Grace tense again. “You are standing on my ground, in my heart, on my path. You cannot be here, not by the grace of the Gods or your fathers.”

“I have been here before, and no one has ever indicated their displeasure,” Grace says, staking his sword into the ground and resting his hands on it lightly. “And certainly not a Kindly One.”

Nico could punch him in the face. There are plenty of people who it is acceptable to be rude to – fathers, meddling Godlings, treacherous friends – but a Kindly One is not one of them. Mostly because Nico is not suicidal, contrary to popular belief. It appears that Grace is.

The Fury looks furious. “You have repeatedly trodden on the paths of the dead?”

What?

She takes a threatening step forward, and Nico’s hand itches to swing his sword, but something holds him back.

“What do you mean, paths of the dead?” he demands, voice quickening.

“Those, child,” she snaps, pointing at the tunnel that Nico had used to reach the grove. “Only the dead can traverse them, and I do not allow such things to happen. Do not think I did not sense you. I am not so blind as that.”

She is Tisiphone, then; the guardian of the gates.

Grace looks at him strangely, as if Nico is the one who is dangerous rather than the blood drenched woman standing before them. He doesn’t address Nico, merely eyes him before turning to Tisiphone.

“If we leave in peace, will you do the same?”

Tisiphone has a perfect poker face. Nico can’t see the remotest glimpse of her thoughts in her expression as she says, “You may leave by your father’s grace.”

Grace freezes, and this time it is Nico’s turn to watch him. “Alright,” he says, and his voice is back to its commanding tone. “Thank you, Kind One.”

She simply stands, and Nico feels naked under her scrutiny.

Grace uproots his sword and steps back, still facing Tisiphone, until he is halfway across the dell. Nico follows, because he doesn’t know what Tisiphone means by his ‘father’s grace’, and he has the sneaking suspicion that it may not be him she was referring to.

“Come on,” Grace says, beckoning Nico over. He must see Nico’s reluctance, as he nods reassuringly.“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks, all business once Nico is within reach.

“Yes.”

“I can get us out, but you have to trust me.”

Nico doesn’t move away in time, and that’s his mistake. Grace takes a hold of his wrist and in a strangely smooth leap, shoots up into the air, pulling Nico with him.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Piper McLean strides through the workshop, coming to a halt before a large steel door and rapping on it sharply. Her gaze narrows as the silence lengthens, and she leans against the door to say, “Leo Valdez, open this door or I will tell Hedge where his mace went.”

She nearly topples forward when the door jerks open, Leo’s grinning face appearing just below her line of vision. He looks positively manic.

“What have you – ”

“I am a genius,” says Leo. “I am the greatest person in the world.”

She coughs.

“Greatest man. I could never hope to even mimic your awe inspiring greatness.”

“That’s more like it. So what’s the plan?”

Leo stops. “I didn’t really get that far.”

Piper laughs, rolls up her sleeves, and gives him a wicked grin. “Sounds like you really do need me.”

“Shut up. I got us the job, didn’t I?”

“I don’t need it. You do. Really, the only difference here is that you won’t have as much time to blow up stuff.” She smirks and Leo rolls his eyes. “So, we’re testing the Argo. Who has never been flown before. And we’re just going to take her up?”

“I never said I was sensible.”

She moves past him and wanders into the main workshop, finding a clean(-ish) looking crate and sitting down on it. The Argo looms up before her, Festus cheerfully smoking at the front and Buford moving supplies into the hold.

“Who are the two that you said were coming later?”

“Hazel and Frank.” Leo scratches his head with a spanner, his brow furrowing as he thinks. “I can’t remember their last names. Hazel’s brother’s gone missing in the Mountains, and the earthquakes mean that she can’t get there by land, so…”

“Alright.” Piper thinks deeply. She’s never been particularly good at planning, but out of the two of them, she’s the one best equipped to deal with people. Leo… well, it’s safe to say that Leo and other sentient beings don’t mix.

They have a destination. They have a crew. They have a ship, although test flying it would probably be a good idea. Knowing Leo, he won’t bother. They have Piper. All things considered, if the Argo doesn’t explode in mid-air then they should be fine.

It just depends on who Hazel and Frank are.

She finds out not two hours later, when the sound of horses reaches her ears. She’s in the outer workshop, because Leo is doing something that involves fire and welding and she wants no part in it. She also wants to see who these two strangers are, and why Leo seems to eager to go along with them.

The first she sees is Frank, who has a serious expression that is odd in contrast to his slight baby-face. He looks fairly harmless; or, at least, he would, if it weren’t for the deadly looking bow and quiver strapped to his back.

Hazel seems to be younger, definitely younger than Piper, but her armour looks well-worn so Piper gives her the benefit of the doubt. She grins, and Piper smirks. This would be the reason for Leo’s acquiescence, then.

She stands up and dusts off her jacket. Spending too much time in Leo’s workshops often ends with strange materials in bizarre places.

“Hello,” she says, walking out to greet the duo. “I’m Piper, it’s nice to meet you. You’re Hazel and Frank?”

Hazel swings nimbly off her horse. “Yes, we are. Nice to meet you.”

Frank smiles at Piper, somewhat reluctantly, and she notes that both their postures are incredibly formal. It’s almost as though they are standing to attention. Probably from Jupitus, then, given their accents.

“I’m Leo’s friend,” she says, and ushers them into the workshop. “He hasn’t told me much about you, why don’t you tell me about yourselves?”

There’s a beat, before Hazel grins brightly and obliges. She seems cheerful, and she tells Piper about Jupitus and life there. “It’s larger than here,” she explains, “but it is a major city. We’re part of the patrol squad there.”

“And your brother? I’m told that you’re going to look for him.”

Hazel sighs. “No, he’s… he’s a wanderer.”

Piper gathers that this is a touchy subject, so she drops it. “I don’t have any siblings, neither does Leo. We kind of adopted each other. Don’t let that hold you back, though; he gets irritating and sometimes the only thing to do it pat him on the head and then lock him in the basement of his workshop.”

Hazel laughs, and Frank gives a rather impressive snort. “That doesn’t seem very nice.”

“Neither am I,” Piper says, grinning.

She likes Hazel. She wouldn’t mind helping her.

She raps on the door before opening it, just in case Leo is still setting stuff on fire. It would be such a shame if he ended up accidentally incinerating some poor travellers. Now, reshaping their eyebrows, that’s another idea.

“Leo!”

“Heya, Pipes! Look, she’s working!”

‘She’ is the Argo, and she is definitely working. She’s only hovering lightly over the ground, with little to no momentum and mostly held in pace by the scaffolding, but Leo is waving and bouncing around on the main deck, laughing wildly.

“Leo, that’s fantastic!” Hazel says, gasping.

Piper wanders forward and rests her hand lightly on the side of the ship. It’s vibrating slightly beneath her fingers, a low thrum that resonates with her heart beat.

“Well,” says Leo, poking his head over the side, “it looks like we’re good to go.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Jason doesn’t quite know what to make of Nico di Angelo. He seems young, certainly younger than Jason, but he has a strange wariness about him that sets Jason on edge. He’s met people with the same attitude before, and it’s never gone down well.

He took a risk in giving him the benefit of the doubt before Tisiphone had made her appearance, and so far, Nico has kept to himself. Jason doesn’t begrudge him that. Likewise, he doesn’t begrudge his anger at being randomly manhandled and pulled into the sky like a sack of potatoes.

Nico angry is not something Jason enjoys.

He’s quiet and still while in the air, his expression blank and his body a dead weight. The second they alight, however, on the side of one of the less steep mountains, Nico wrenches away and takes a few large steps to distance himself from Jason.

“What,” he hisses, “was that?”

Jason holds up his hands pacifyingly, a movement he’s finding himself doing more and more often. “It’s okay. Calm down, Nico.”

Nico glares at him, and he feels a chill run down his spine, almost as though Nico’s anger is radiating from him. “Don’t touch me without my permission again.”

“Alright. I won’t. But we had to get out of there before the Kindly One changed her mind and tried to kill us.”

Nico nods, jerkily, but doesn’t move. “What was that?”

“Magic.”

The answer is short. It’s simple. It’s highly illegal and Jason would lose his rank and probably his head if Nico decides to tell anyone in Jupitus. Judging by Nico’s sudden loss of colour, he knows it too.

“My father was a stormshaper,” Jason says. “I inherited a little of his magic.”

Nico nods, again, but he still looks afraid. Jason sighs. “Look, I won’t hurt you. You haven’t hurt me yet, and I trust you not to hurt me in the future. So I won’t hurt you.”

The dark hood is lowered, and Jason can’t read Nico’s features, but he doesn’t say anything, so Jason just hopes that his message has gotten across and that Nico isn’t secretly plotting to murder him in his sleep.

“We should go find shelter,” Nico says after a while of standing in silence, weathering the brunt of the wind that is beginning to pick up.

“Alright. There’s a sentry rest over the mountain. It’s about half an hour’s walk.”

“How do you know it isn’t another entrance?”

“Entrance?”

Nico freezes, then shakes his head. “How do you know that another Kindly One isn’t waiting there?”

Jason stops. “I don’t.”

“Then follow me.”

They walk for an hour, until Jason’s eyes begin to droop and he has to consciously tell himself to stay awake. The mountainside is steep and rocky, with few shrubs and an obscenely large amount of loose earth. He’s lucky he hasn’t twisted an ankle yet. Nico seems confidant, though, so he trusts him and keeps following.

The ground levels out, and Nico stops at a tiny plateau carved out into the side of the mountain. It’s not quite a cave, but the rock provides some shelter against the weather and the flat space is large enough for a few people. Jason is surprised he hasn’t found this area before, given that he’s so often on patrol around these mountains.

“What is this place?” he asks, kneeling down and pressing a hand onto the earth. It’s compact and cold.

“It’s a graveyard.”

He yanks his hand back. Theoretically, he knows that there are probably bodies buried over every surface of the earth, but he doesn’t have to come into contact with them.

There’s also the off chance that it was an old patrol’s burial. Considering what happened to his, it’s not too hard to believe.

He feels a tap on his shoulder, and he turns his head to see Nico peering at him oddly.

“I don’t mean to pry, but you said you were in a patrol. The rest of them…” Nico hesitates. “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

It’s hard to admit the entire thing to himself, but the word comes easily.

Nico doesn’t apologise. Jason’s glad.

He does, however, smile very slightly and say, “We aren’t standing on them, if that helps.”

Surprisingly, it does.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“Alright, first stop, Half-Blood Peak!”

Leo is leaping and bounding around the Argo, twirling knobs and fixing dials and pulling levers and just generally making a nuisance of himself. Hazel has to admit, she’s impressed, even if this is reputedly the Argo’s first flight – even for testing.

Hazel sits down in the middle of the main deck, and Frank drops down beside her, arrows rattling in his quiver. He has yet to take it off.

“So, we’re going here,” she says, pulling out her map and pointing to Half-Blood Peak. It’s the closest town to the Titanikós Mountains, but it’s also inside the mountain range itself. She has a vague memory of Nico mentioning it once, but otherwise, she knows very little about it. Relations between Half-Blood Peak and Jupitus are nigh on non-existent.

“Yep,” Piper chirps, still standing but leaning to read the map. “I suggest we go from Half-Blood Peak to wherever you think your brother might be. Did he specify somewhere, or just the Mountains? ‘Cause that’s a pretty big area.”

“I can find him once we get there.”

Hazel doesn’t trust her magic. She doesn’t practice it, she doesn’t dare use it, and as of late it has been becoming wilder and more primal. But she isn’t afraid to try to use her earth sense to locate her brother. It might take a few tries, and she’ll have to be careful about making sure that Piper and Leo don’t see, but she thinks she can do it.

“Alright.” Thankfully, Piper doesn’t press further. “There’s been an influx in bandits and monsters, though, so be careful. Frank, how good are you with that bow?”

“I’m alright.”

“He’s amazing.”

Frank goes red, and Hazel smiles at him. Piper eyes them with clear amusement and a certain amount of mischief, before continuing. “I think you’ll do a good job at keeping them away from the Argo, then. Festus can only do so much. Oh, and Frank?”

She beckons Frank over, and he leans up. She whispers something in his ear that Hazel doesn’t hear, but whatever it is makes Frank go a brilliant shade of crimson and shake his head vehemently.

“No, no, it’s not like that!”

Piper grins and shrugs. “I know what I see. It’s your choice. I’m just saying.”

She wanders off, and Frank subsides, still blushing. He looks adorable.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” he says, looking down at the map again. “So, Half-Blood Peak. How long will that take?”

“I…” Hazel tries to remember what Leo had told her in the workshop when he was explaining the Argo’s design and capabilities, but it escapes her memory. “I don’t know. I’ll go ask Leo.”

She does, and he hazards a guess at around three or four days. “It’s quite a way away,” he explains, “and you’ve seen the earthquakes going on. It’s not safe. I’m pretty sure I have a device – ”

“A wondrous device?”

“– shut up, Piper – that can stabilise the ship in case of earthquakes, but I’ve never really tested it and it was really just a toy. I could probably attach a seismograph to it that would predict them, or at least measure others, but –”

“Thanks, Leo,” Hazel says. “It sounds amazing. I might be able to help if you want.”

Leo’s face brightens up. “Really?”

“Of course.”

“That would be great!” He smiles cheerfully at her, before pulling a few scraps of metal from his tool belt and beginning to fiddle with them. “I should go get started.”

He does, leaving Hazel watching him bemusedly.

“You get used to him,” Piper says. Hazel looks at her, and she can’t help but think that Piper looks so much more mature. Piper catches her glance and smiles; her eyes are kaleidoscopic and dance with humour. “He does like you, though.”

“That’s good,” Hazel says. “I think he’s fun.”

Frank coughs from his position next to the map, and Hazel goes red. “Oh, I’m sorry! I got distracted. Alright, we’ve still got a few days…”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“So, what’s your deal?”

Frank looks across to where Leo is fiddling with something small and shiny. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why’re you coming with?” Leo pulls off his goggles and shoves them up to sit on his flyaway hair, giving Frank an appraising glance.

“We’re trying to find Hazel’s brother.”

“Yeah, got that, but from what she’s said he sounds kinda…” Leo shrugs. “I don’t know. Creepy.”

Frank thinks on this. Nico is creepy, there’s no doubt about it, but he could be a lot creepier. For a necromancer he’s remarkably well adjusted. But he’s Hazel’s brother, and it’s thanks to him that Hazel had even come to Jupitus in the first place, so Frank feels like he should return the favour. “He’s creepy, yeah, but he’s alright. I don’t know much about him. But he brought Hazel to Jupitus, so…”

“So he can’t be all bad, yeah, right. But what’s in it for you?”

“Why does there need to be something in it for me? He’s in trouble, he asked for help. It’s only fair.”

Leo leans forward and his gaze turns serious. “You don’t honestly think you’ll be able to find him, do you? All you know is he’s in Titanikós. That’s super vague. It’s like trying to find a lost fishhook in an ocean. You can’t do it.”

“No,” Frank says, finding himself agreeing with the pessimistic outlook. “But I can try. Besides, Hazel would be devastated if he went missing.”

“Ah, our fair Hazel.”

He stiffens, and then reminds himself to relax. Hazel hasn’t been any friendlier with Leo than she is with anyone else, and even if she were, it’s not Frank’s place to make it a problem.

“Look,” Leo says. “All I’m saying is that sometimes things are lost causes. It’s going to be practically impossible to find Nico. But sometimes…” He shrugs, pulling apart the little flying machine he just created. “Sometimes things are possible, and all they take is a little risk.”

“You’d take that big a risk? What’s in this for you, anyway?”

Leo’s eyes light up. “It’s a chance to get out of that damned Camp, isn’t it? Jehsaedh is great and all, and they leave me alone to tinker, but they don’t let me leave. Plus, do you know how long I’ve wanted to test out the Argo?”

Frank freezes. “Hold on. They don’t let you leave? How come you’re leaving now?”

Are they leaving with some sort of criminal? Why wouldn’t Leo be allowed to leave? Frank doesn’t exactly dislike him, per se, but he wouldn’t find it entirely unexpected if Leo had blown something up or accidentally hurt someone.

“No, no!” Leo is quick to defend himself, no doubt from the horror dawning on Frank’s face. “I haven’t murdered anyone or anything! Jeez, chill! No, it’s just that I was sent to live there by my guardian ages ago, and until she collects me, I’m not technically supposed to leave. Some sort of tradition thing, I don’t know.”

That doesn’t sound very traditional.

Frank says as much.

“Nah, the people there are totally cray-cray.” Leo shrugs. “Probably something in the water. Or lack of. Maybe that’s it. They don’t get enough water so they went psycho.”

“That’s rude.” He doesn’t know a lot about the lands outside Jupitus, but he’s well aware of the problems of water shortages. “A lot of people don’t get enough water. Don’t be so dismissive.”

“Wow, touchy.” Frank raises an eyebrow, and Leo backs down. “Alright, big guy, have it your way.”

There’s a convenient alarm, which presumably mean something to Leo, as he leaps up with a grin and gestures for Frank to follow him. “Come on, we should be just overhead now. Up, up!”

Frank follows bemusedly, almost laughing as Leo trips on the stairs in his excitement. “What are we over?”

“You’ll see,” he replies cryptically. Or, at least, he’s probably trying to be cryptic. Unfortunately for Leo, he is naturally a very un-cryptic person, and so it turns out more like an enthusiastic toddler trying to hide a birthday surprise.

Leo drags him over – literally, he has a strong grip for someone so scrawny – and shoves him towards the railing on the side of the main deck. “Look!”

So Frank looks.

Camp Jehsaedh is just behind them, a sprawling, low-lying town that very nearly fades into the surrounding land. It’s dry and a little bit dusty, with avenues and streets that weave around the sunken houses. Frank thinks he can spot Leo’s workshop back in the distance, too; it has some very distinctive scorch marks around it.

To the east he can see the road that he and Hazel took, and the hills and passes look small from the vantage point. Jupitus is far in the distance, nothing but a vague cloud on the horizon.

To the north, spans the largest mountain range Frank has ever seen, and their altitude only makes it more impressive.

“Those,” says Leo grandly, “are the Titanikós Mountains. Not afraid of heights, are you?”

“Obviously not.”

“Good. Wouldn’t want you puking all over Festus.”

“What – ”

And then Frank is falling.


	5. The Pink and Purple Piper Eaters

“You don’t have to trust me, all you have to do is let me get you out of here.”

“How do you plan on doing that? Do you know this area well? I do, I’ve been patrolling here for years. Considering all the earthquakes and that damned mist, I think it’s a better idea to use the routes that the Legion has set up.”

“Those routes are filled with monsters. Even the safe spots are under the Kindly One’s guardianship.”

“I know that. But it’s our best hope. Nico, I trust do trust you. But I trust my knowledge of the mountains more than yours, because I’ve had more experience here and, although you are capable, you’re still a traveller.”

Nico is ready to tear his hair out in frustration, but Grace is earnest, and his idea isn’t as insensible as it first seemed. So he takes a deep breath, pulls himself together, and tells himself that he’s doing this for Hazel. He can’t rely on her to save him, and he has to reach somewhere that isn’t as dangerous and send her a message. “Okay. Okay, I’ll follow you.”

Grace sits back, and Nico is grateful that his expression doesn’t waver. “The trails are safer by day. If we start now, we can reach Half-Blood plateau in three days, taking into account ten hours of darkness each night. It’s unwise to travel then because the slopes are too unstable.”

“I’ve travelled during the night, and it’s safer,” Nico says quietly. “There are less active monsters around. If you want to avoid conflict, then travel at dusk.”

Grace mulls over this for a second and then nods, accepting that reasoning. “Alright, we might make it earlier then. Are you comfortable with this?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, let’s go.”

As it turns out, Nico is right. Not five hours into their trek, as they are walking through the one stretch of valley that hasn’t been filled with mist, a group of monsters leap out at them. Nico barely has time to put up his sword before they descend upon him.

He battles on instinct; he feels the movement of those around him, the actions broadcasted by their bones. With each parry, he gets more and more sure that he and Grace are dealing with more than they can handle.

The monsters are harpies, there’s no doubt about it. Their wings are large and the feathers razor sharp, and Nico notices a crazed glint in their eyes. It’s worrying, terrifying, that the usually solitary and apathetic creatures would suddenly attack travellers. He knows that they don’t exactly look innocuous, but this is not what he meant when he mentioned monsters.

He sees Jason across the other side of the fray, holding his own against a blue winged harpy. Grace is doing well, but harpies are clever, and she easily sidesteps most of his swings.

Nico quickly darts forward when he sees an opening against his own foe, and then rolls away as another dive bombs him from the sky.

“We can’t take them all!” he yells.

Grace doesn’t falter, but he does manage to land a hit on the harpy he is fighting. “We can’t run, they have us surrounded!”

Nico doesn’t usually swear, but he feels like it. There’s too many; he is fighting two, Jason has another coming in from behind him, and he can hear others in the distance. If it had been one or two only, they could have acted, but there’s no chance now.

It’s time to bring out the big guns.

Before he can think, before the logical reaction of ‘What the hell, Nico, where did your sense of self-preservation go? Do you _want_ Grace to skewer you like a shish kebab?’ can kick in, he drops his sword and _pulls._

The earth shifts.

He can feel it in his bones.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Frank has never screamed as loud as he is screaming now.

It’s hard not to, given that he is hurtling earthwards at a million kilometres an hour, wind streaming past him and yowling in his ears.

‘Please don’t die, please don’t die,’ is all he can think. ‘Please, Gods, don’t let me die.’

Then, abruptly, his descent slows, and stops.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“You did _what?!_ ”

Hazel looks ready to murder Leo, her hair frizzing and eyes flashing. Sparks flicker around her fists, and Piper can recognise uncontrolled magic when she sees it.

Hazel is a witch.

How interesting.

“I sent Festus after him!” Leo says, waving his hands wildly. “Dude, calm down! He’s not going to get hurt!”

“How do you know that? Are you watching him right now? Can you even see him?” Hazel begins pacing back and forth on deck, and boy, does she look _pissed._

Piper steps forward. “Alright, calm down, both of you. Leo, do you know where Festus is right now?”

“Sure,” Leo says. “He’s cruising at about twenty thousand feet below us. Should be easy enough to spot.”

“And do you know where Frank is?”

“With Festus.”

Piper nods. “Hazel, Frank is going to be fine. Leo, if you ever pull a stunt like that again I’m going to hit you so hard you’ll see pink pachyderms for a week.”

Hazel gives Leo one last glare, then stalks off.

“You are a moron,” Piper says sharply, and Leo looks oddly contrite before she turns and follows Hazel.

Or, at least, before she tries to turn and follow Hazel, because before she manages to do so, there is a loud cry and she whirls around to see a beautiful pink and purple gryphon diving straight for them.

“Leo!” she yells, pulling out her dagger.

“On it!”

With a strange sense of detachment, she marvels at how majestic and fluid the creature’s movements are. She’s never seen a gryphon, only read about them in her books, and the pictures can’t compare to the real thing. It has a sharp beak, with colourful feathers leading down to a lion’s torso. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t trying to eat her.

She dives out of the way just as it barrels in, landing on the deck of the ship with surprising grace.

It whirls and slashed out with its claws, and Piper leaps out of the way, swinging her arm around to try and hit it with her knife. She isn’t good at fighting; she can hold her own in a small fight, and she’s amazing at sweet talking people into leaving her alone, but with creatures like the ones that litter the mountains, she isn’t sure how much use she’s going to be.

It’s a doubt that often haunts her mind.

There’s a shout from behind her, and Hazel rockets forward, landing a solid hit on the gryphon. It shrieks, a horrible noise that makes Piper flinch, and Hazel grins wildly. She looks… older. More practiced, as if she has done this a thousand times, and her motions are so fluid that Piper can’t help a brief flash of awe.

“You take the other side, we’ll flank it!” Hazel says.

Piper does so, catching the gryphon on its left flank and leaving a long scratch. It’s not deep, but it agitates it, and its tail lashes out, catching her around the ankles. Hazel takes that moment to leap forward and deliver a gash to its neck.

Another horrible screech, but its echoed out in the sky.

“There are others?!” Hazel yells.

Piper takes the opportunity and rolls under the gryphon. (It stinks. She had no idea gryphons smelt so bad.) She grasps her dagger with both hands, takes a deep breath (which she immediately regrets because news flash, it fucking stinks) and plunges it into the gryphon’s heart.

It lets out a wail of a death cry and nearly falls onto her before she kicks it up and away.

“There are three more headed this way!” Hazel says, hurrying over and giving her a hand up. “That was amazing, good job!”

“Not so bad yourself.” Piper wipes her dagger on the multi-coloured feathers before turning to see the trio of gryphons approaching.

“I hope Frank’s alright,” says Hazel, and Piper glances across at her. Her eyes are trained on the gryphons, and her stance is ready, but the downward pull of her mouth indicates her worry.

“I’m sure he’s alright,” Piper hastily reassures her. “Leo may be a moron, but he sent Festus with Frank, so he’ll be perfectly safe. Festus is amazing, he’ll be sure to keep Frank out of harms way. Do you know if he has his quiver with him?”

“I don’t know.” Hazel’s lips draw tight. “Look alive, they’re nearly here.”

Piper’s grip on the knife tightens and she readies herself, just as Leo comes rushing up from beneath decks, yelling, “Festus hasn’t – ”

Then, barrelling out from underneath the ship, comes the most beautiful dragon Piper has ever seen. Not that she’s seen many dragons other than in pictures, but this one is a marvellous vermillion in colour, with scales that shimmer and ripple in the sunlight.

It roars, and the gryphons immediately turn to it. With a huff, smoke curls from its nostrils, before it opens its maw and shoots forth a wave of fire.

“What is that?!” Leo yells, holding an arm over his face. “There aren’t any greater dragons in these mountains!”

Piper’s eyes are tearing up, and she feels a heat wave rocket over them. “I don’t know, but it’s strong! I think it can – ”

It can’t. The fire deters the gryphons for a moment, but when one comes forward, the dragon doesn’t move fast enough; in fact, there’s an oddly clumsy tilt to its movements that end up in it nearly being skewered by the gryphon’s claw.

“What…”

“Look out!”

While the dragon was being suitably distracting, one of the gryphons has decided to go for the easier target, and is flying towards them. Piper looks around wildly, before noticing that Leo has his spanner out.

Piper knows what that means.

“Hazel!” she yells, running over to grab the younger woman by the wrist. She follows, if only from the shock factor, and Piper hastily ducks behind the nearest surface, which just so happens to be Buford. She doesn’t know what Leo’s table is doing up here, but she’s glad it is. Buford is amazing.

Then all hell is let loose.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“You saw _what?!_ ”

Percy takes a few steps back. “Look, Grover was doing border patrol and told me about it. Dragonfire! On the border! Seriously!”

His, currently very stressed, leader strides back and forth, her blonde hair all over the place and arms gesticulating violently. If he gets any closer he’s going to get a black eye, and that’s a fact. Annabeth doesn’t have time to worry about people’s proximity when she’s under pressure.

“Alright, alright.” She pushes her hair back and comes to a stop. “Dragons, gryphons and… what was it?”

“A chimaera.”

She lets out a groan. “Alright. Where’s Grover?”

“He’s gone to warn the satyrs in the forests and near the East Glade.” Percy scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “I think he’s planning to go further, too, down to the base of the peaks.”

“Okay.” She looks irritated, but Percy can see the glaze of strategy slipping over her eyes. “We’ll deal with this one, and have… Travis and Connor, and Michael, they can warn the rest of the Peak. Do you have enough energy to take down a chimaera?”

Percy grins, spinning his sword around loosely in his hand. A ripple of water follows it, ebbing around the blade before settling into the stone on the pommel. “Do I ever.”

She rolls her eyes. Percy takes that to mean, ‘good luck, don’t die, and I love you.’

“Rachel!” Annabeth yells, striding forward and strapping on her daggers. “We’re going to go take care of the chimaera sighted fifteen minutes ago! Send reinforcements when Grover sends word!”

“On it!”

Percy jogs a few steps before matching her stride. “Hey, it’ll be fine.”

“Percy, dragons aren’t found in the Titanikós Mountains,” she says seriously, the commanding aura abruptly dropping. “Chimaeras are so rare they may as well not be around. Do you know how impossible this is?”

Percy shrugs. “No. But I get the feeling you’re going to tell me.”

Annabeth gives him an amused look, but sobers. She doesn’t continue.

“I’ll be getting Blackjack then?”

Percy takes her silence as acquiescence, and hurries off to the stables.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Nico doesn’t use his power a lot.

It’s not like necromancy is something that you bring up over dinner conversation. ‘Oh, yeah, and by the way, I summon the dead in my spare time, how about you?’

It’s also not something that many people think is particularly good, or at least, most people regard it with a certain amount of suspicion. So it speaks volumes for the sheer enormity of the situation that Nico is willing to risk his neck for Grace, and in more ways than one.

He clenches his fists and drags his hands up, and the earth shivers with the movements. A large crack begins to open, rock falling into its depths, and as he strengthens his will he can feel the skeletons of decaying beasts underneath. The harpy he had been fighting squawks and flutters back, until a skeletal hand grabs onto its ankle.

“Rise!”

The earth thrums in anticipation, but on the edge of his senses he can feel the faint taint seeping through his magic. He resolves to work faster.

The harpies aim for him, correctly identifying him as the more dangerous target, and he grins manically. He can feel their bones, feel the blood thrumming through their veins, giving them life and sustaining them. He can feel the residual motes clouding their senses and their thoughts, turning them wild and addling them beyond repair. He feels _everything._

And as such, he can snuff it.

The crack widens into a chasm, and he sees in the corner of his vision Grace stumbling to keep his stance. Skeletons pour from the earth, running towards the harpies with ill intent in their every move. Their undeath fuels him, and he stretches out a hand, directing them.

“Come on,” he mutters, feeling around for that little spark that he feels in every living being. “Where are you, where are you…”

A harpy swoops by him so he ducks, and he feels a few hairs get shorn from the end of his ponytail. Not that there was much hair in it in the first place, but the fact that the harpy could get that close and he still can’t feel anything makes him worried.

Then, he feels it.

Only, it’s less a spark, and more a void.

It’s just…

He jerks his hand up and away, pulling as many undead warriors from the earth as he can afford, and begins drawing the harpies in. “They aren’t alive!” he yells for Grace’s benefit. “The harpies, they aren’t – there’s something wrong!”

A skeleton warrior falls. The connection thread snaps.

Nico doesn’t like summoning the dead precisely for this reason. Each is powered by a little bit of his own life, which makes him vulnerable, and Nico hates vulnerability. But if they can keep him alive for a little longer, it’s worth it.

“Listen to me!” Grace shouts from across the din. He’s fighting a harpy alongside one of Nico’s skeletons. “There are ten soldiers under your command, five harpies, and more coming in from the south! We need to get out of here!”

“What’s the plan?”

Grace, in the space of fifteen seconds, has somehow managed to fight his way over to Nico’s side. He’s mildly impressed. “Tell your soldiers to distract them, and then we can retreat. We can’t win, but we can get out and find reinforcements.”

Nico doesn’t have a better idea.

But wait, yes he does.

“Lead them to the chasm,” he says, moving away. “We can force them in and I can close it on them!”

Grace nods once, and then heads in the opposite direction.

Through excellent swordplay (Grace) and some truly dirty fighting tactics (Nico), they manage to back the harpies into the chasm. Grace even pushes one in backwards with a high kick that leaves Nico wondering about his dramatic tendencies.

He widens his eyes and feels for the earth, before snapping it shut with a resounding crash. The ensuing tremors are enough to knock Grace back off his feet, and somehow, Gods know how, he hits his head on the way down and lies in a still, silent heap.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Frank, for as long as he can remember, has never really had many ambitions as to his future. He figured, hey, he was going to be in the Jupitus military for ten years anyway, so he’s got plenty of time to procrastinate the anxiety and stress that comes with future planning.

He knows what Hazel intends to do. She wants to start a horse riding academy, which he thinks suits her down to the ground, but he also thinks that she isn’t going to stop there. Jupitus hasn’t got much of a cavalry, but Hazel could change that.

But him, he doesn’t know. He can shoot, and he can cook, but neither of those are particularly sought after. He’s a good soldier, although perhaps a little clumsy. He could, theoretically, make the legion his career.

But now…

Oh, boy.

When Frank grows up, he’s going to be a dragon.

Because dragons are fucking amazing.

He dives at the gryphon, releasing a stream of fire from his mouth and internally screaming. The gryphon narrowly avoids getting fried, and lands a hit on him. But, because _Frank is a dragon,_ his scales deflect it and send the gryphon careening off in the other direction.

The next gryphon tries to attack him from the side, but because of the ever-so-subtle colouring of its feathers, Frank sees it coming and in a lazy swat, sends it hurtling earthward.

He breathes fire to finish off the first one just because he can.

Suddenly, there are no more gryphons.

He hovers for a moment, getting settled in this new body of his ( _dragon!!!)_ and trying to figure out how wings work. The Argo is just a few beats of his wings away.

The deck is on fire.

The _deck_ is on _fire._

He hadn’t been aiming at the deck, and Gods know he wouldn’t do it on purpose, but there is no denying the simple fact that the ship is on fire and Hazel is on the ship and he _knew this was a bad idea from the start._

He’s changing before he knows what’s happening.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“Piper!” Hazel screams. “What’s going on?”

Piper presses closer in against Buford, grateful once again for the worktable’s protection. “It’s Leo!”

“I know it’s Leo, but what is he doing?!” She sounds panicked, terrified, and Piper reaches out to clasp her hand.

“Hazel, hey, it’s okay! Leo knows what he’s doing!”

“Is it magic?”

Piper can only be honest. “Yes, but it’s alright, magic isn’t bad. It’s just a tool. There’s nothing wrong with it! And if Leo saves us, that will prove it!”

Hazel is looking around at the fire, her hands clenching. Piper tries to calm her. “Hey, hey, it’s alright.”

“It’s not alright!” Hazel turns to look at her, and while Piper knows that she herself can look wild, Hazel looks truly turbulent. Her bronze hair is flying out every which way, and her eyes have a strangely manic glint to them. “Magic is banned for a reason! This can kill us! It will kill us! And what about Frank? He’s out there with Festus, and if we burn the ship down, what’s he going to do?”

Piper pulls back, and treads carefully. “Hazel. Magic is a tool. Leo is amazing with tools, you’ve seen his workshop. All that welding? The soldering? That’s all done like this. Leo is using it just as carefully and precisely as he usually does, only on a larger scale. It’s okay. He has control.”

Leo chooses that moment to laugh, and he looks like a feral imp. Understandably, this does not help Piper’s case.

“Leo!” Piper yells. She’s sure that any gryphon still left alive would think twice about attacking them now. “Pull it back!”

He almost doesn’t, until she yells incoherently and he snaps out of it. With an overly dramatic motion, he calms the flames and then banishes them with a cackle. The gryphon Piper killed has been cremated. The one that had been trying to attack them is nowhere in sight; Piper would like to keep it that way, thank you very much.

“Where is Frank?” Hazel demands of Leo as soon as she can stand. “What – ”

Suddenly, she is interrupted by a whooshing sound, and then a thud as a blur hits the ship deck.

“Found him,” Leo says, pointing at the groaning Frank shaped mass. “Do I get a prize?”

Piper lets out a surprised laugh, and watches as Hazel hurries forward to check on him. “Is he alright? Where’s Festus?”

Leo frowns and looks around. “I don’t know. Festus!”

Hazel and Piper exchange a glance, and Piper can see the relief and confusion in Hazel’s gold eyes. “He’s fine. A little bruised, and he has a cut just here,” she traces along his side, “but otherwise, he’s fine. I don’t…”

A shadow flies overhead, and Leo laughs in relief. “Hey, Festus, buddy. I see you caught Frank al – ”

There is a whistling noise, and then a sharp pain bursts out in Piper’s shoulder. She gasps, her hand immediately going to the site of the pain, and beneath her fingers she feels the tell tale texture of a gryphon feather.

She sees a heavily burnt, but still hale, gryphon flying off into the distance.

“Piper? Here, hold still.” Leo bustles around her, movements quick and flighty. He touches her shoulder, and it _hurts,_ as if someone has just stabbed her with a knife.

“Hey, hey, Pipes. Look at me.”

She does, smiling at his uncharacteristically solemn expression. “Hey, I’m fine. It’s just – _ow_ – just a feather.”

Leo looks up at her.

“Really.”

“If you lie to me,” he says, and she is reminded of the orphan she met seven years ago, “I will kneecap you into next week.”

“You couldn’t even if you tried.”

“Alright, maybe into the day after tomorrow. Can’t help it if I have a naturally fine boned frame.”

“Meaning, scrawny.”

“Scrawny is the new sexy.” He moves her over to sit next to Frank. Her shoulder really hurts.

“Is red my colour?” she asks curiously, peering around to see where the blood is staining her shirt. “I’m never too sure.”

“Piper, everything is your colour.” Leo rolls his eyes. “You could wear a watermelon and make it look good. Now stop talking. I don’t know much about wounds, but I’m pretty sure there’s a ‘no bothering the doctor’ clause in there somewhere.”

“Stop mouthing off to patients, there’s a clause for that, too.”

Hazel is watching them, an arm around Frank’s shoulder. “How do you do that?”

Piper and Leo turn to look at her in sync, but Leo jars her shoulder and she winces lightly. “Do what?”

“That,” Hazel replies, waving vaguely. “You’re so… calm. I don’t…”

Piper winces, feeling lightheaded. “We’ve seen worse. You either laugh or cry, and Leo looks ugly when he cries, so we try to laugh.”

“I look fantastic.”

Hazel lets out a slightly hysterical laugh.

“See, there you go.” Piper smiles widely. Hazel actually looks better now, calmer, less likely to fly off the handle if Leo uses his magic again. “Smile.”

She glances down, and unless she is very much mistaken, Frank’s lips twitch, ever so slightly, before he says, “Boo.”

Piper has never heard anyone scream as loudly as Hazel does in that instant.


	6. Chasing Annabeth

“You guys are so lucky that we’re here,” Percy says, and the only reason Annabeth doesn’t tell him to shut up is because she’s a little busy trying to convince the border satyrs to let the ( _giantfloatinghowisitdoingthat_ ) ship past.

The curly haired boy gives Percy a flat look. “Yeah, real lucky. That chimaera wouldn’t have found us if you hadn’t lead it straight to us.”

“Leo, play nice,” says the girl with the amazing nose. “I’m sorry, we’re all a bit stressed.”

“You’re injured, you don’t get to negotiate,” Leo hisses back, and the girl glares at him. “No, seriously. You’re losing blood fast enough, don’t make it happen any faster.”

The ship, which Annabeth gathers is called the Argo judging by the name on the side, gives a mournful creak. She’s really very impressed by it, to tell the truth, as the sheer engineering precision that must have gone into it would be enough to keep her occupied for a week. Half-Blood Peak is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and so interesting feats of technology are hard to come by.

She isn’t sure how much magic is used to power it, but it must be significant. She wonders idly if Leo is feeling the strain.

After a few minutes of debating ( _intensearguingopinionsdagger_ ) with the satyr, she manages to bribe him with a week’s worth of free fruit. And some heavy name-dropping. Just because Grover is off doing who knows what, who knows where, doesn’t mean his influence isn’t still felt.

“We’ll take them straight to the Main House,” she says, slipping off her helmet. “I want to know who they are and what they’re doing here before we let them loose with this ship again.”

Percy nods, briefly, then goes to chat with their… prisoners? Travellers? Annabeth isn’t sure what to call them. Logically, she knows that they probably aren’t intending to cause harm; none of them can possibly be any older than she is, after all, and she’s certain she and the rest of the Peak can handle them. But the ship is miraculous, and she saw each of them fight, and she knows that they almost certainly have a higher goal in mind.

It’s her job to know what it is.

It’s difficult to find a space in Half-Blood Peak large enough to house the Argo, but Annabeth is nothing if not ingenious, and so she manages to walk Leo through landing it on the roof of House Psion. Percy makes a bit of noise about it ( _protectivetridentattic_ ) but eventually relents. Annabeth is very convincing.

Then, she leads them down to the Healing Halls, sits them down, and demands an explanation while they’re checked over by the medics.

“Who are you and why are you here on a giant, flying ship?” She gets straight to the point.

They all look at each other before the dark skinned girl speaks. “I’m Hazel Levesque, and this is Frank Zhang, Piper McLean, and Leo Valdez. I got a letter from my brother saying that he needed help, and he was in the Titanikós Mountains, so Frank and I came out here. Leo let us travel on his ship. We were going to stop off at Half-Blood Peak and ask if you’d seen my brother.”

Annabeth frowns. “Who is he? Should we know him?”

Hazel glances towards Percy, brows furrowing ever so slightly. “I don’t know. His name is Nico di Angelo, and he’s about my height with dark hair and pale skin.”

Annabeth starts, and notices Percy wince rather dramatically. “Nico?”

“Yeah.” Hazel looks between the two of them, and her expression solidifies. “Have you seen him?”

Annabeth looks at Percy. It’s his story to tell, not hers.

“Yeah, we know him,” he says heavily. “He’s… well, we haven’t seen him all that recently, but he’s definitely in the area. He used to live here, a long time ago, so we know the signs.”

“Signs?” Hazel sounds confused, and Annabeth can’t help but wonder if she really is Nico’s sister ( _skineyeshair_ smile). They look nothing alike, and they certainly act differently. “What, does he leave notes or something?”

Percy glances at Annabeth, who shrugs. ‘Your problem,’ she mouths, and he scowls at her. She blows him a kiss. “Something like that. You said he was in trouble?”

Hazel nods, taking out a scrap of rumpled paper that she hands to Annabeth. Annabeth hasn’t seen Nico’s handwriting in a long time, years maybe, but she recognises the scratchy scrawl.

Piper lets out a little gasp as one of the medics jostles her shoulder, and Annabeth takes a moment to check on her too. She seems fine, if a little pale, but the bandages are no doubt going to impede her movements for a while. Piper catches her looking and nods. “It’s fine.”

“Good. Now, I would like some kind of explanation for what we flew into earlier, if it’s not too much of a hassle.” By that, she means, tell us before we kick you out and steal your ship. Because she is absolutely going to steal the ship. It’s fascinating.

Hazel looks at the bed where Frank is lying, fiddling with his own bandages. “Um… we don’t really know either. A group of gryphons attacked us. Piper killed one, Leo killed another, and…”

There’s a moment of weird mental communication between Frank and Hazel, before Frank says, “I killed the other two.”

“And the dragon?” Percy asks. “Our scouts said they saw dragonfire, did any of you see the dragon?”

“No,” says Leo. Annabeth doesn’t miss the brief flash of surprise in Frank and Hazel’s expressions. “We saw the fire, but there weren’t any dragons around. It was too fast, you know? Burnt up the Argo a bit, though. Luckily Buford protected us.”

The workbench clatters from its position next to Leo.

“After that, well, you saw it. Chimaera, lots of blood, Mr. Heroic over here – ” he waves at Percy, “ – looking perfect in shiny armour.”

“Alright,” Annabeth accepts grudgingly, ignoring his last few comments. “Now rest up. Percy and I will be back to check on you sooner or later.”

She turns to Percy, who grins wildly. His armour shimmers ever so slightly, and his grasp on Riptide is light and easy as he says, “We’re going to hunt dragons.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

It’s evening, and the low light in the Healing Halls washes over the two of them. Hazel is perched on the end of Frank’s bed, fletching arrows shoddily, and he’s staring at the ceiling, thinking. Hazel can’t really read his expression.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asks quietly, so as not to wake Leo and Piper up.

Frank looks across at her and smiles, and her stomach does a little jump-skip-hop. “I’m fine. A bit bruised, and the stuff they’re putting on the scrape stinks, but I’m alright. You okay?”

“Good as gold.” She fidgets, then bursts out, “Was that magic? What you did, before?”

Frank looks down at his hands, his smile widening into a brilliant grin. “I don’t know. It was… it was something amazing. All I was thinking was that I didn’t want to be falling, and then the next thing I knew, I was a dragon. It’s terrifying, but, wow, Hazel. I wish I could show you. I was a dragon!”

Hazel has to laugh at his enthusiasm. “I was really scared,” she admits. “I thought… well, Leo had sent Festus after you, but when he told me what he did…”

She punches the sheets.

“I don’t know how someone can be that stupid and irresponsible.”

Frank looks mightily unimpressed. “Let’s not talk about Leo.”

“Let’s not.” She looks at him thoughtfully. “You know, that magic… did you know you could do it?”

Frank shakes his head. “Never.”

It’s an interesting thought. She’s always known that she is magical; she can feel the arcane flow through her like a second sense. But for Frank to suddenly be this powerful, and with no forewarning or awareness? She wants to ask Annabeth about it. She looked like she knew what was what.

Especially considering the use of magic on Half-Blood Peak.

Half-Blood Peak is beautiful, but not in the way that Jupitus is. The Peak is sprawling and chaotic, with people running every which way and houses arranged in no particular order. When they were being escorted through, Hazel could see people training solo, in groups, with and without weapons and, most surprisingly, with magic. The evidence of the use of magic is all over Half-Blood Peak. Some of the Houses have clearly been decorated with magic, and some even use it as a decoration. She had seen some gorgeous dancing lights fluttering around one of the larger Houses, and the House that they landed the Argo on it had a clearly magical river running through it.

She has never seen magic so _free._

She thinks it’s the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen.

“Hey, Hazel?”

“Yeah?”

Frank sits up, wincing a little. “You don’t think it’s scary, do you?”

“No,” she says, quickly and honestly. “I think it’s beautiful.”

“Oh.” Frank goes red. “Well. I would rather it be manly and handsome.”

Hazel rolls her eyes, grinning. “That, too.”

She smiles at him, and he smiles back.

It’s quiet and soothing, until Leo mutters something in his sleep, and they both snap out of it.

“I should get some sleep.”

Frank nods, burrowing down into the mattress. “Yeah. Big day tomorrow. We might finally find Nico.”

He shuts his eyes and rolls over. She hesitates, then shakes her head, climbing into the next bed. Better not.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“You know, you don’t have to do this.”

“Grace, please don’t talk.”

Jason doesn’t feel like that is the most sensible of ideas right now, so he ignores Nico and keeps talking. “Listen, I can walk fine. You’ve got a rolled ankle. If we stop for twenty minutes, we can sort it out and see if we can keep going in a marginally safer manner.”

Nico shifts Jason’s arm around his shoulder to a better angle, and Jason mentally swears up a storm. He landed on his side oddly at the end of their run in with the harpies, and each time he moves around it aches a little. Nothing he can handle, but painful nonetheless.

“We have to keep moving.” Nico is quiet. He also seems more withdrawn. “If we can get to Half-Blood Peak sooner, you can get back to your post sooner.”

Jason has to admit, the prospect is tempting. But it’s daunting, too. He’ll have to explain the loss of his patrol, how he survived where the others didn’t, and that already makes him feel guilty enough. He doesn’t want to have to face friends, subordinates, and colleagues with that kind of a confession.

There was nothing he could have done, but he feels like there should have been. He’s _Jason Grace,_ Jupitus’ golden boy.

Then there’s also the Nico problem.

Because of course the one traveller Jason meets is a necromancer, of all things. He thought his magic was something big; by the apparent ease at which Nico wielded his own talents, his power is equal or more than Jason’s. It’s an interesting thought, having an equal. Jason has never really been able to practice his magic, not with the attitude of Jupitus, but he thinks he could find an interesting sparring partner in Nico.

It’s dark, nearing midnight, and eventually Jason persuades Nico that he can slow down and take a break.

“How’s the ankle?” he asks, sitting back and gently rubbing his back.

Nico prods the gauze and nods. “Manageable.”

It’s not much to go on, but Jason figures it’s all he’s getting. Nico’s hood is drawn, and it makes him look a little threatening. (Now that Jason knows exactly what power that hood hides, he’s not surprised.)

“If you want, I can leave,” Nico says, standing up and testing his walking again. “I know you’re not comfortable.”

“We should get to Half-Blood Peak first, then let’s talk about leaving.”

Nico looks surprised.

Jason shrugs. He’s not one to over analyse his actions. It just seems like the right thing to do, particularly with the encroaching mist and the sudden influx in monster activity.

He can see the mist beginning to rise in the lower valleys, and he knows that the chances of them reaching Half-Blood Peak before the mist reaches them are sinking by the minute. So he stands, stretches warily, and prepares to get moving.

“Oh, and Nico?” he says, looking over his shoulder. “What you did back there was pretty cool.”

Nico looks away.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Percy likes Hazel and Frank. He offered to show them around, leaving Piper and Leo with Annabeth. Turns out, Hazel is a little ball of slightly wary sunshine, and Frank is as dependable as Percy is not. (Frank also has a cynical edge that gets Percy into trouble from Chiron, because Percy laughs loudly and Frank is not a good liar.)

“Is your armour all right?” Percy asks. “If we set out tomorrow, you don’t want to have anything that looks like it’s about to break.”

He pokes at Frank’s breastplate, and he shoos Percy away.

“I think they’re fine,” Hazel says, adjusting her pauldrons. “Jupitus’ armour holds up to a fair amount.”

“Well, if you need to bang out a dent or two, there are hammers over there,” Percy says, pointing to one corner of the armoury. “Reckon you could do it, Frank?”

Frank looks at the hammer. It’s small and used for precision indents. “Looks a bit heavy for me,” he says sarcastically.

Percy picks it up and does a few experimental hefts. He passes it to Frank, who promptly starts juggling it around and tossing it up into the air. It’s like he’s playing hacky sack with it.

“Impressive. Try doing a header.”

Frank drops it on his foot.

“So, how’s Nico these days?” Percy asks, dropping down onto a stool and kicking his feet up onto another. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

Hazel shrugs, exchanging a glance with Frank. “Last time I saw him was several months ago. He was… okay, I guess. It’s hard to tell. He was more cheerful than usual, but he was rushed and I think he was planning to do something after he stopped to see us.”

That fits with Percy’s mental image of Nico.

He opens his mouth to reply, but suddenly a hand drops on to his head and ruffles his hair. He looks up to see Annabeth looking grim.

“Grover’s here,” she says. “He wants to see you.”

He leaps up and hurries out, calling out a “Sorry!” over his shoulder to Frank and Hazel.

Grover is waiting for him at the Main House. He’s sitting on the veranda, legs dangling over the edge and his pipes to his mouth. Percy can’t really tell what he’s trying to play, but it sounds like the wind rattling through a broken shutter door. Maybe it sounds better to satyrs.

“Hey, man,” Grover says, looking up. Percy slumps down next to him, careful to keep Riptide out of the way. He’s whacked Grover with it accidentally more than once. “You’re not going to like this.”

Percy groans. “Please tell me that there isn’t a random invasion of giant spiders. Annabeth would go batshit.”

Grover snorts and shakes his head. “No, thank the Gods. But one of the dryads from the east sent a message that the harpies are getting restless. They’ve been attacking travellers randomly for the last few days.”

“That’s not good.”

“Thanks, genius.” He fiddles with the panpipes, blowing into them and producing random notes. “The mist is coming in as well. I’ve lost contact with the dryads that it’s surrounded.”

Percy leans forward, elbows on his knees. It’s threatening news; there’s no guarantee that Half-Blood Peak’s elevation will work in its favour. Sure, it’s doubtful that the mist will rise up to the town itself, but all their borders will be in danger.

Now, Percy’s not stupid. He knows that they have to figure out the source before they can stop the problem. But without any information, and all their scouts slowly going missing, he doesn’t see how they can do anything about it.

Annabeth comes and sits down next to them.

“There isn’t really anything we can do, now, is there?” Percy asks. He knows when to delegate a problem.

Annabeth shrugs, and she’s got her thinking hat on. It’s a sight Percy’s used to seeing, and he loves the little furrow between her brows when she’s puzzling through a particularly difficult problem.

“I don’t think that’s quite true,” she says, slowly. “Hazel said that Nico was in these mountains, didn’t she? And if he’s still missing, and we haven’t seen him, then it follows that he’s still out there. He might have answers.”

“I don’t really want to go to Nico for answers,” Percy admits. “I don’t trust him not to tell us something wrong.”

He hates saying it, but he’s lost his faith in Nico. He’s too unreadable, too chaotic, and Percy really can’t get a handle on him and his reactions to situations enough to trust him fully. He knows, theoretically, that Nico’s a good guy; it’s just that he’s unpredictable.

“I think you’re biased,” Annabeth replies frankly. “You’re not looking at this from a practical perspective. If Nico knows anything, it’s in his and everyone else’s best interests for him to share it. No one gains from his silence. And, we’re also assuming that we can find him, and if we do, that he even knows anything.”

“Nico always knows things.” Grover plays an ominous tune on his pipes. “Kid’s a walking encyclopaedia.”

They lapse into silence. Percy knows they have a point.

“What about Hazel, though?” Annabeth muses.

“I like her, her and Frank. I think they’re being entirely honest about this whole thing. I don’t see how Hazel and Nico are related, but if she says they are, then I believe her.”

“Grover?”

Grover shrugs. “Don’t have much of an opinion. I think they’re nice enough, but Frank – that’s the black haired guy, right? – smells funny. Like an animal person, but… well, more. It’s confusing.”

Percy trusts Grover, and he certainly trusts his nose, but he’s not making any sense. “I don’t get it.”

Grover makes a frustrated noise and waves his hand, a wild gesture that makes him look like he’s swatting flies. “He smells like someone who has contact with animals _all the time._ Literally.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s true!”

“Alright, boys, calm down.” Annabeth waves them into submission. “You can ask Hazel and Frank all the questions you like, but don’t argue about stupid stuff.”

“It’s not stupid,” Percy says indignantly. He doesn’t pout. Percy Jackson does not pout. “You’re stupid.”

“Pot, kettle.” Annabeth kisses him on the cheek and stands. “I’m going to go do important things. Don’t flood anything while I’m gone.”

“That was one time!”

She wanders off, and Grover nudges him in the side. “Dude, you look like you’ve been hit over the head with a dead fish.”

“Shut up, it’s romantic.”

“Not when you look like a stunned mullet it’s not.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

It’s halfway through the second day and Jason is ready to call it quits, but Nico seems to know where he’s going. They’ve been following winding paths along the mountain ridges for hours, and Jason knows as well as anyone that the Titanikós Mountains are almost impossible to navigate due to their sheer size. Yet Nico seems confident.

Jason, for himself, is wrapped up in managing the pain in his side and the worry over how his original post is going with half its legionnaires and its commander missing.

A branch slices him across one cheek as they pass a particularly stubborn olive tree, and he scowls at it. The path they’re navigating at the moment is rocky and pale, with earth that is drier than Reyna’s sense of humour, and if Jason trips on one more stone he is going to fly from here to Half-Blood Peak. He’s willing to risk passing out in mid-air if it means avoiding stupid dirt trails.

“Hey, Jason,” says Nico. They’re walking separately again, but Jason’s a little mollified by Nico’s choice to walk next to him rather than behind him. “Do you trust me?”

That’s a loaded question if Jason ever heard one. He goes for honesty. Nico would probably appreciate that more. “Depends.”

Nico nods and drops the topic.

“Say,” Jason says, stretching his arms behind his head. “You never actually told me why you were out here in the first place. I mean, you said you’re an explorer? But… wouldn’t these mountains be a little dangerous right now?”

Nico shifts. “I was exploring around here before all of this started.”

Jason’s not dumb. He knows evasion when he sees it. So, he pushes on. “Then why didn’t you leave sooner? And what brought you here, anyway. I never thought Titanikós was really interesting. Just a lot of rock. Good for growing fruit, though.”

“I wanted to go north for the winter,” Nico says, gesturing to his hood and vest. “I usually go further south, because it’s warm and the weather’s nicer, but there were things that you can only see here in autumn and winter.”

“Fair enough.” Jason quickly thinks of something, anything, to fill the silence. “Got any family waiting for you back home?”

“I have a sister in Jupitus.”

“Miss her very much?”

A shrug. “I sent her a message just before the mist and earthquakes started. Might see her at Half-Blood Peak, or even further on if I make it there.”

Jason hasn’t seen his own sister in years, and it sends a little pang of pain through his heart. He misses Thalia – not that he’d admit to her face, she’d tease him to kingdom come – and he’s looking forward to seeing her someday. Apparently the south is good for hunting.

He rounds the bend in the trail, and suddenly there is a valley ahead, mist trickling in at the edges but mostly untouched. And on the other side –

“It’s Half-Blood Peak,” Jason says, grinning a little bit. “It’s just over there, we did it!”

“We still have to make it through there,” Nico points out, gesturing to the valley. It’s filled with trees, a forest so thick that Jason can’t hope to see through it. It’s the perfect place to get eaten by a monster, and no doubt the monsters know it too.

“We have our goal. We can do this.”

Nico doesn’t reply. Jason ignores it. He knows that he can do this, and he also knows that he’s going to drag Nico along with him whether Nico likes it or not. He’s just an explorer (and a scarily adept necromancer, but Jason’s trying not to think too much about that). He shouldn’t be stuck in the wilderness in the middle of an uprising.

Jason has a well-kept secret, and that is that he is a massive history nerd. Mythology, legends, old folk tales from centuries ago; Jason loves them. So, he knows when patterns in nature are indicators of something supernatural occurring, and this? A scary mist and an influx in monsters? These are definitely omens.

Some call it superstition. Jason doesn’t think so. There’s always a grain of truth even in the oldest stories, if only one can find it.

The descent into the valley involves a lot of slipping and sliding and at one point, Jason just takes out his shield, puts it on the ground, and sleds straight down a beautifully even slope. When he looks up to beckon Nico down, Nico is smiling and trying to look away.

“Be ready,” Jason warns when they start to enter the thicker areas of forest. “We can’t see anything here, so be on your guard.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“Hey, have you seen Annabeth?”

“Sorry, you seen Annabeth lately?”

“Got any idea where Annabeth went?”

“No, she hasn’t finally given up on me and run away to join the Hunters. Thanks a bunch, Travis.”

Percy drops down and rubs at his head. Annabeth does not disappear. That’s just not something she does. She’s always very careful to tell him or someone else exactly what she intends to do, because of all people, Annabeth understands worrying about someone because they’ve gone off and done something stupid.

“She’ll have a plan,” Grover says comfortingly. “She’s always got a plan. Maybe it’s just a super-secret plan, and she can’t tell you because then she’d have to kill you.”

“I think super-secret plans aren’t really that impossible, actually, Grover.”

There’s a cough from behind him, and he turns to see Piper waiting at the door to House Psion. “May I come in?”

“Yeah, sure.” He moves a few papers off a chair and tries to make the room look marginally less like a tornado had just hit it. “Sorry about the mess, I’m not very organised.”

“I’m friends with Leo; trust me, I know all about mess.” She plucks at her hair as if to illustrate her point. “Anyway, I heard you were looking for Annabeth.”

“Yeah, she’s been gone since this afternoon.”

“Did you see her?” Grover asks.

Piper shakes her head. “I didn’t. But Leo was up working on the Argo, and he said that he saw her poking around near the south-western border.”

Percy jerks up. “That leads off into the Titanikós Mountains!”

“Does he always point out the obvious?” Piper asks Grover, who laughs and shrugs.

“I think he has to prove that he’s not an idiot next to Annabeth.”

“Ah, tough game.”

Percy rolls his eyes. “Look, we should get going. Piper, grab Leo and come with me. Grover, tell Hazel and Frank where we are, but don’t let them come after us. If they have information about what’s going on, I want them here and safe. Um…” He looks around. “Anyone seen my sword?”


	7. Percy Jackson and the Primordial Deity

“Annabeth!”

There’s a curse, and the sound of something slamming into something else, then a flurry of swearing that would make a sailor blush. Leo looks at Piper and they exchange a smirk.

“Hey, Percy?” Piper calls out. “Want some help there?”

“I’ve got this!”

Leo is busy fiddling with a few spare pieces of machinery that he appropriated (read: stole) from House Phaeston, trying to make something that will help them with their search for Annabeth. He thinks it’s all a little pointless. If Annabeth left without telling anyone, then she doesn’t want to be found. He knows that much from previous experience.

Sure, he thinks it’s suspicious. City leader running off headlong into probably danger without telling anyone? That sounds alarm bells even in Percy, who Leo gathers is not the sharpest sword in the armoury. But he fails to see how this is any of his and Piper’s business.

“You know,” he says nonchalantly, “we could just have taken the Argo. Do a few laps, look for running blondes. Rather than risk breaking limbs because no one can see where they’re going.”

Despite it being easily one o’clock in the afternoon, the forest to the east of Half-Blood Peak is dense and thick, almost as dark as the inside of Leo’s bunker back at Camp Jehsaedh. Unless Percy has some kind of Annabeth-homing-device, Leo really doesn’t think this is going to end with anything more than frustration and a few twisted ankles. Maybe a broken wrist if someone lands funny.

“Oi, Piper, want to run a book on probable injuries in the next ten hours?” Leo asks, elbowing her in the side.

“Twenty silver on Percy getting a concussion,” she says. “And another ten on Annabeth being the one to give it to him.”

He’ll bet on that.

“Fifty on you two twisting ankles because you’re so busy making bets about how whipped I am!” Percy yells back.

He’ll bet on that, too.

They keep trudging through the forest, presumably following Percy’s intuition. Leo has managed to make a little flying machine. He tries to get it to fly up above the tree line, but it hits a stray branch and explodes. Leo didn’t even remember making anything in it that _could_ explode.

He has no idea how much time passes, but there seems to be some kind of difference in the sun’s position by the time Percy calls for a break? Maybe? Leo doesn’t really see the sun often enough to be able to calculate that sort of thing.

“Alright.” Percy drops down to sit on a nearby tree root and gestures for them to do the same. “Well, Annabeth is obviously going to do her own thing whether or not we can find her, so we may as well take a break. Anyone got any food?”

Piper produces an array of fruits and snacks from her pockets. That’s one of her lesser-known skills that Leo really does appreciate. She can just pull food out of the weirdest places. Not even eggs out of ears, we’re talking full on dinners out of absolutely nowhere. He’d say it was magic, but he knows better.

“So, did we really do all that walking just to give up on finding her?” she asks.

Percy shakes his head. His mouth is full of blueberries, but he talks anyway. Piper makes a face. “Annabeth is… well, when she wants to be found, we’ll find her. But the important thing is that in the meantime, we keep looking.”

“That’s so romantic,” Piper says dryly. “When are you proposing?”

Percy goes a brilliant shade of red, and Leo cackles.

“Shut up,” he says good-naturedly. “Anyway, I think she’s close. She didn’t go with any supplies or anything, right, Leo?”

“Nah, just a hat and the stuff we saw her in earlier.”

“Then she’ll be near.”

They sit in silence for a second, before it’s broken by a faint rumble in the distance. Then, abruptly, the earth beneath their feet shakes.

Leo staggers, nearly getting thrown forward before Percy catches his arm. He latches onto Piper as well, and the tremors ebb away.

“What – ”

He doesn’t even have time to finish his sentence before the second one hits, and this time it’s larger, stronger, and sends them all crashing down in a heap. The epicentre of the earthquake is shifting, and while Leo doesn’t know much about geography, he’s pretty sure that’s not possible.

He looks up and meets Piper’s terrified gaze.

“We have to get out of here.”

Afterwards, he’s not sure who said it, but they were all thinking it. Within seconds, Percy is leading them back towards Half-Blood Peak, his sword out and his pace far faster than Leo think he can keep up with. But something fuels him forward, keeps him running, until they’re barrelling past worried dryads and satyr sentinels.

“Percy!” screams one. “Annabeth hasn’t come back yet!”

“Get the relay network working!” he yells. “There’s something coming!”

“Tell Grover!”

“I will! Thanks, Juniper!”

There’s another rumble, further off this time, and they pick up the pace. A shudder wracks the ground, and Leo once again curses not bringing the Argo, or at least Festus.

Festus!

He grabs for his tool belt, searching through until he finds what he needs. He’d programmed Festus to be able to respond to long distance commands (which is why he was fine with letting Festus catch Frank, jeez, people should trust him a little more), but he’s never had to test it out before.

He hastily constructs a really, really shoddy remote, and sends up a prayer before connecting the wires.

(If he uses a little magic to help the signal along, well. No one has to know.)

“Come on, bud, you can do it,” he pants.

He gets a weird look from Percy, but the guy hasn’t got a leg to stand on, when just last night Leo caught him talking to a pond full of fish.

The tree cover lightens slightly, and Leo can actually see stretches of sky when he tilts his head up. This is a mistake, as he promptly trips on a tree root and slams face first into the dirt. When he claws his ways back up again, he looks up to see Festus whirling above them, trying to find a large enough gap in the canopy.

“Festus!” he yells, waving. “Down here!”

There’s an affirmative creak, and P-squared step back to let the draconic automaton land.

Leo runs up and rubs Festus’ neck, grinning madly. “Thanks a bundle, buddy! Come on, let’s get out of here.”

He swings himself up onto his back, beckoning for the other two to join him. Piper does so without hesitation, but Percy looks a bit more reluctant.

“You know what, I might just ask Blackjack for a ride,” he says.

“We already know you’re an idiot, we don’t need proof,” Leo says. “Get on.”

He does. It’s probably Leo’s amazing charm and charisma at work.

Festus leaps up into the air, and after a few seconds of unsteady flight, levels out into something resembling... well, flight. Leo lets out a victory cry.

“Leo, look,” Piper says suddenly, urgently, and he twists to follow her arm. Behind them, far to the east, he can spot tiny avalanches falling from the sides of the mountains. The mist is rising and tipping over, falling like water from a cliff and pooling at the eastern end of the valley.

“What’s going on?” he asks. He looks at Percy. “What is this?”

Percy just shakes his head and grips his sword tighter. “I don’t know. But I think that’s what Annabeth is out investigating.”

“She’s investigating the scary mist that has slowly been taking over the world?” Leo rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’s clever.”

Piper pinches him.

“Oh, you were being serious.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

She has to find them. The tremors are increasing, their frequency and intensity growing. Annabeth knows, instinctively, that if she can’t find them soon, then she’ll never find them and she’ll never find her answers. She dodges a falling rock and slashes aside a branch. She can feel them, not far ahead, and she knows she’s on their track. Not their future track, but approaching their old one.

“Nico!” she yells, hoping she’s close enough for him to hear her. “Nico, where are you?”

She keeps running.

She should have told Hazel. She should have told Hazel, and Frank, and definitely Percy or at least Juniper; better that than to rely on her instinct. The earthquakes are happening too quickly, beginning to soon. Something isn’t right. She’s _never_ drawn conclusions so far off the mark.

( _speedtimelookrightfallingbranchaheadkeepgoing_ )

“Nico!”

There’s a cry from somewhere to her left, and she veers, nearly tripping on a crack in the earth. She can barely see where she’s going.

She rounds a corner and runs straight into a tall, blond man. They topple backwards and she rolls, coming up with her knife in hand and her other hand outstretched.

“Annabeth!” It’s Nico, darting between her and the man. “He’s with me.”

She doesn’t move. “We have to get out of here. Something’s coming.”

“I know. Jason – ”

The man, Jason, stands up, and Annabeth’s eyes flick over his frame. Muscular, patrol leader, probably higher status, noble lineage, from Jupitus or surrounding areas, same aura of power as Percy.

“Follow me, we have to get back to the Peak as soon as possible,” she says, gesturing impatiently for Nico to follow her. When he doesn’t immediately follow, her stress skyrockets. “Nico, we have to go. What are you waiting for? There’s no time!”

“Annabeth, calm down,” he says, drawing back. There’s something different in his eyes.

She bounces lightly on the balls of her feet. She has to keep herself moving, keep herself on the brink of nervous tension to give her that edge that will get them back safely. “There’s no time for whatever you’re planning. Trust me, I know where I’m going.”

“You’re worrying me.” Nico takes a step in the right direction, but he’s moving slowly ( _tiredshocksuspicious?injurylate_ ). “Annabeth, I don’t understand.”

“There’s no time to explain!” she snaps. “Just listen to me, we have to go!”

She starts jogging backwards, until she’s sure Nico and his new friend are following her, before she turns around and begins the run back to Half-Blood Peak.

She hears footsteps quicken until Jason is running beside her. “The mist is rising,” he says, his words coming out steadily despite their fast pace. “It’s been rising for a long while now, but in the last two days it’s become faster. But the mist itself isn’t dangerous. It’s okay.”

She doesn’t know what he’s trying to do; calm her down? Convince her that everything’s alright? It’s not, it’s too far gone for that. The mist is bad, very bad, and she knows it all the way down into her subconscious. Jason’s words, however well-meaning they may be, are just that: words.

“No, Annabeth, listen.” He seems to pick up on her scepticism. “The mist, it’s nothing, just a sign. We have time enough to get back to Half-Blood Peak. Calm down and start thinking rationally.”

“I am thinking rationally!”

It bursts from her lungs like someone’s punched her. Then it doesn’t stop.

“I’ve been thinking about this for three weeks! Nothing else has been on my mind! I know exactly what the mist is, what it means, who it heralds. I have been thinking about strategies and war and plans for the past month, so don’t tell me to start thinking rationally!

“And you know what my conclusion was? There’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”

A branch whips her in the face, catching her along the cheek and leaving a scratch. “If I can keep us alive for one more hour, for long enough to get back to Half-Blood Peak, then I can keep us alive for another hour. And then maybe another and another, but I can’t keep us alive forever, not with this coming for us. So we are going to run, and we are going to make it back safely, because _I do not want your deaths on my conscience._ ”

She runs faster, feeling the mist rising behind her.

Jason doesn’t speak again, but it could be more to do with the sudden increase in their pace than anything she just said.

She glances back, and seeing Nico just a few feet behind, turns away again. She needs to get back to Half-Blood Peak, alert the satyrs, send a message to the dryads to get back to safer ground, and then organise some kind of defensive force.

There’s so much to do, and she doesn’t have time to do any of it.

And she really, really wishes Percy were here.

_Fuck,_ she’s so _stupid_ sometimes.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“What’s going on?”

Hazel paces back and forth on the deck of the Argo, hands in her hair and heart full of worry. The earthquakes have been rocking at the edge of her senses, pulling at the magic she keeps fiercely contained. Each time she gestures, little sparks of dazzling, gem-like colours fly around, and she’s powerless to control them.

“Hazel, calm down.” Frank reaches out and catches her by the shoulder, and she turns to look up at him. “Deep breaths, come on. We’ll be fine.”

She notices the stress lines around his eyes and the tense way he holds his shoulders, and realises that this is taking it’s toll on him, too. So she does as he advises, and puts a hand to his chest so they can mimic each other’s breathing.

“We’ll be fine,” she repeats. “No dragons, no chimaeras, nothing.”

Frank suddenly straightens up. “Actually, about that.”

She doesn’t have time to say anything before Frank is suddenly gone. She can feel his magic blanket over him, but when she reaches out her hand, there’s nothing there.

“Frank? Frank!”

There’s a bark from below her. She looks down.

Frank has turned himself into a dog.

She drops to her knees and laughs herself silly. It’s not even hysterical, it’s just joy. They’re about to get swallowed up by the earth itself, and somehow Frank has found the time to learn how to shape shift into a large, cuddly dog.

“You’re amazing,” she says, trying to stop smiling. Frank grins back and pads over to flop onto her knees.

No one can be sad when there’s a dog around. Even if that dog is Frank. That just makes it even better, which could be kind of weird but Hazel isn’t thinking about it. She’s _not,_ really.

She buries her head in his side, and he turns his head to nuzzle into her shoulder.

“We’ll be fine.”

They get a few minutes of peace, before the door slams open and Grover is standing there. “Hazel! Frank! We need you!”

She jerks up, eyes wide. “What’s happened? What’s wrong? Have they found Annabeth yet?”

Grover shakes his head. “Go get Frank, we’ll meet back at the Main House.” With that enlightening statement, he disappears again, leaving the door shaking on its hinges.

Frank rolls off her knees and transforms again, and Hazel laughs. He still smells like dog.

“Come on,” he says, offering her a hand to help her up. “If there’s something we can do to help, we should, shouldn’t we?”

She feels her heart burst, and she is smiling when she takes his hand.

They make it to the Main House just as Grover is dashing in, nearly running into them. “Alright,” he says, clapping his hands to get the attention of the various people milling around. “Guys, listen up! I just got a message from Juniper, and Percy is on his way back, but he hasn’t found Annabeth. There’s no sign of where she’s gone, so we’re just going to have to hope that she makes it back safely. Um… any questions?”

“What’s the deal with the earthquakes?”

“Good question, Connor, and I have no idea. Neither do the dryads, which means it’s probably supernatural.”

“Anything we can do about it?”

“Probably not, but good to see you on the initiative, Michael.”

“Can we kill it?”

“Seriously, Clarisse? You can’t kill an earthquake.”

“No, but whatever’s causing it.” Clarisse, a big burly girl a few feet away from Frank, folds her arms. “If it’s supernatural, then something’s gotta be making it happen, right? So if we can find it and kill it, it’ll stop.”

Grover opens his mouth to reply, then stops. He looks thoughtful. “Actually, Clarisse, that’s not as dumb as it sounds.”

“Gee, thanks, Grover.”

Grover frowns, but before he can say anything, the door slams open again to reveal Percy, Leo, and Piper. Percy looks like a hero from a play, ready to take on the world, and Hazel can’t help but be impressed. Piper looks like she’s about to tear off someone’s head, laugh, and then waltz away, pulling off the blood stained shirt look to perfection. Leo just looks lost.

“Percy!” Grover pushes his way over. “You alright?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Peachy. Clarisse had an idea: if we can find whatever’s causing these earthquakes, then we can destroy it and stop them. Their source is moving, so it makes sense.”

Percy taps his sword hilt. “Not a bad idea, but how are we supposed to figure it out? Annabeth has gone AWOL.”

Hazel looks over at Frank, who nods. “Um, I think I might be able to help, there.”

Percy and Grover look over at her in sync. “Oh, yeah?” Percy asks, curious. “How’s that?”

“I have magic,” she says, nervous but okay with admitting as such. Half-Blood Peak is an extraordinarily magical city. “It’s naturally geokinetic, as far as I know. I’ve been feeling it on the edge of everything, but if I had time, and space, I might be able to pinpoint something.”

Percy’s face lights up, and he moves over to high five her. “That’s fantastic! What do you need?”

She needs space, open air, and a direct connection to the earth. That’s what she gets.

Percy leads her to a stretch of land overlooking the valley, which has been left to grow wild for pasture. She finds a nice spot, clear of weed, and sits down, hands either side of her and pressed to the earth.

“Yell when you find something,” Percy says, before wandering off with Frank, who gives her a thumbs up.

So she closes her eyes, and concentrates.

It builds slowly. At first, it’s all a vague tingle, like a breeze or a funny smell. When she tries to grasp it, it eludes her.

She tries again, and again, stretching out her mind and trying to wrap it around the faint feeling that ripples below her fingers. But she can’t hold it, can’t fix her sights on it for long enough to catch it and identify it. All she can tell is that it is old, _ancient_ even, and more powerful than any of them think.

So she changes tactics. She loosens her grip, and sinks into the earth.

Her vision is filled with darkness, the press of earth on her eyelids, and she’s falling. It’s all around her, and she wonders idly if this is what a bug must feel like, or a worm as it burrows downwards.

There’s something different about it, though, and as she opens her mind, it becomes more and more apparent. The taint isn’t coming from the earth, it’s coming from _below_ it.

What could possibly be below the earth?

The sea of blackness breaks, and she catches a glimpse of red, before her eyelids shoot open and she is once again sitting alone on the hill. The earthquakes have stopped, and even the mist on the other end of the valley doesn’t seem to be moving. It’s like time itself has stopped while this entity (because it is an entity, Hazel can feel it) sizes her up.

Then, just before the connection breaks, she hears a rumble of a laugh.

“Hazel!”

Frank is running up towards her, Percy following at his side.

“Annabeth’s back!” Percy pants, leaning forward and wiping his brow. He looks up at her, a little grin on his face. “She found Nico.”

Hazel has never run so fast in her life.

She and Frank tumble through Half-Blood Peak until they reach the Main House, where a small figure is standing next to two blond ones, and as he turns to look at them, Hazel feels tears prick at her eyes.

Nico’s there, and he’s whole, and he’s miraculously _not dead._

“Nico!” She pulls him into her arms, shifting so that he doesn’t slam his head on her armour. He grips onto her, clinging and pressing kisses to her forehead.

“Thank you,” he breathes. His voice cracks halfway through the short exclamation. “Thank you. You’re okay, you’re here; thank you.”

Frank lingers back, letting the two siblings have their moment. Nico cracks an eye open and Hazel feels her heart burst with love for them both as Nico beckons Frank to join them.

“Thank you both,” he says, repetitively, as though he cannot say the words enough. “I… I didn’t want to, there was so much going on, but…”

“You stupid boy,” Hazel says, and she can barely speak through her tears. “You’re family. We’ll always come.”

“She’s right,” Frank says, wrapping both of them up in his large arms. “I don’t know why you’re thanking us. You’d come for us, so we came for you.”

They’re laughing and crying, and there’s impending doom hanging over their heads, but honestly, Hazel can barely breathe for joy.

Nico clutches at them both then reluctantly draws away. “We need to go. He’ll be coming, and we don’t have enough time as it is.”

“Who?” Hazel grabs Nico by the wrist. “Who is ‘he’?”

He turns dark eyes to her, and she shudders at the fear in them. “Tartarus. He who slumbers beneath the earth.”

His voice is flat, like he can’t even bring himself to let loose the building worry in his chest. Hazel feels exactly as he does, and just the name alone makes her fists clench around her sword handle. There comes another shake, an earth tremor that rocks them on their feet.

“Please, we have to leave,” Nico says.

“Where will we go?” Hazel asks, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Nico, we can’t run. Even if there’s nothing we can do, we have to try.”

He shakes his head. “I… you can’t fight a being that powerful. He doesn’t even have a physical form, what would you hit?”

“Then we’ll think of a better idea,” she says decisively.

“Why fight when you can’t win?” Nico pulls away, hands visibly shaking once again, and Frank puts a hand on Hazel’s shoulder when she instinctively reaches a hand. “What’s the point? I don’t want to watch you die! Not you, not anybody!”

“Hey, Nico.” Frank pats Hazel on the shoulder then moves forward, gently steering Nico away from the general commotion of the main square. “Let’s talk.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

Frank takes his hand from Nico’s back the moment he can. “Nico, I’m going to be frank with you.”

“Seriously.”

“You know what’s going on better than any of us. I don’t care why,” he holds up a hand at Nico’s sceptical snort. “No, I really don’t. I trust that whatever you did, you thought you were doing it for good. But you have to understand that these consequences are something that we can’t run from. You’ve been hiking for weeks, maybe months, and how far have you gotten? The mist is on your trail. It’s already made its way to Jupitus – ”

“What?” Nico freezes. “How is that possible?”

Frank shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know much about what’s going on. But you do, and you owe it to yourself to do what you can with that knowledge before we run out of time.”

Nico curls in on himself. “What if we can’t do anything?”

“Then we’ll die with family.”

Nico turns away, rubbing his eyes. Frank gingerly places a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t touch me.”

“Sure.” He doesn’t move his hand.

It takes a moment, but soon Nico has regained his composure. Frank makes a mental note never to mention it, ever. Nico would probably gut him.

“Alright.”

He walks forward, back to the Main House. Frank sighs, rubs the back of his neck, then looks up as Nico says, “Frank?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The Main House is crowded again when they get back, but when Nico walks forward, the crowd parts around him like a wave. Frank just follows behind, not questioning Nico’s bizarre ‘move or I move you’ aura.

Annabeth and Percy are talking, debating over a large table covered in maps and diagrams. Hazel is standing off to one side, next to Piper, and smiles when she sees them. Piper is talking to the man that had been standing with Nico earlier. Leo is missing entirely.

“Annabeth,” says Nico, and abruptly the entire room falls silent.

“Nico,” she acknowledges, eyes skimming over his frame before darting off to glance around. “We could use your help.”

Frank moves over to Hazel, and they watch the exchange between Nico, Annabeth, and Percy with open interest.

“The earthquakes aren’t natural,” Nico begins with, stating the obvious. “They’re being cause by an old god, Tartarus.”

Annabeth goes very still, before nodding quickly. “Okay. What can we do?”

“There’s only one thing we can do. There is a seal, over on the other side of Titanikós. If we can find it again, and seal it, then he won’t be able to exert his power above ground.”

“Hold on.” Percy waves a hand. “I’m lost. Who is Tartarus?”

“He’s a primordial god,” Annabeth explains. “He sleeps beneath the earth, and his power extends all throughout the great pit beneath the underworld. At least, that’s what legends say. Like any other god, he’s very real, but he was sealed into his realm a long, long time ago. I don’t know how he’s causing earthquakes, or this mist, but…”

“The seal doesn’t seal him,” Nico says. “It seals the gap between here and the pit itself. When it was opened, it left a gap between here and the pit, so anything inside could escape. The mist is… well, I don’t know the proper word for it, but in Old Tongue they called it _jehsarahn._ ”

“The Old Shadow?”

“I suppose.” Nico shrugs. “I don’t really know what it does, but I think it warps the mind. All the monsters, they were mad. And…” He looks over at the blond man who Frank still doesn’t know the name of. “We saw a gate guardian when we were travelling over here.”

“A Kindly One?”

“Yes.”

The blond man comes forward. “She was at one of our patrol rest stops, which has been in continuous use for years and we’ve never seen her before. I’m not saying it’s necessarily a correlation, but a coincidence like that is unlikely.”

“Who are you?” Percy asks bluntly.

“Oh, sorry. Jason Grace, Commander of the Fifth Cohort of Jupitus, Titanikós Outpost.”

“Just needed a name, not a life story, but thanks. I’m Percy.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Frank snickers. “This is going to be interesting,” he mutters to Hazel, who laughs behind a hand and successfully distracts him from the next segment of conversation.

He turns his attention back to Nico & Co. when Annabeth says, very loudly, “It’s _how many days’ travel?!”_

Nico steps back. “Please don’t yell at me.”

Annabeth loosens up and gives him an apologetic look. “Sorry. But we can’t make it, and anyway, won’t his power be the strongest there?”

“Yes,” Nico admits. “But we have to try, and it’s the only solution we’ve got.”

Annabeth sighs loudly, running a hand over her face, and Percy leans over to grasp her free hand. “Thanks, Nico,” he says, smiling. “You’ve done a lot.”

Nico goes red, then turns away.

“Hey, I’ve got a solution,” comes a voice from below them all, and Frank crouches down to see Leo hidden beneath the table, scribbling on a sheet of blueprint paper. He looks up when Frank approaches. “Oh, hey, Frank.”

“Hi, Leo. What are you doing under the table?”

Leo holds up the blueprints. “Redesigning the Argo’s engine. With this baby, we could get to the other end of Titanikós in a couple hours, maximum.”

He offers them to Frank, who can’t read them at all and promptly passes them on to Annabeth.

“Leo, these are amazing.” She pulls out a pencil from somewhere and begins scribbling on her maps. “Nico, can you show me exactly where this seal is?”

He does, and she quickly calculates the distance. “That’ll only take us four hours!”

Frank catches Nico’s eye and smiles. ‘See?’ he mouths. ‘There’s always a chance.’


	8. Guardian Angels

Piper wants to help.

She wants to help Leo and Annabeth with fixing up the Argo, but three’s a crowd and she doesn’t know enough about engineering to be any use. She wants to help Percy and Grover with the citizens of Half-Blood Peak, but she’s a foreigner and it wouldn’t be appreciated. She wants to help Frank and Hazel and Nico practice with their magic, but hers is quiet and unobtrusive, and nothing like any of theirs.

So she sits with Jason on the Argo, surrounded by maps and books, and plans.

“We won’t want to take many people,” she says, sitting back on her hands and thinking. “We’ll need some to keep away whatever monsters are in the area, but according to Nico, the pass is small and the halls even smaller.”

“Nico says he knows where the seal is, but he doesn’t know how to shut it.” Jason frowns, and Piper laughs at the brooding expression. He grins back. “No, seriously, though, if we can’t figure out how to shut it, then how are we going to do anything about this?”

“Well, Nico could open it, right? So, maybe Hazel can shut it.” Piper hastens to explain. “They’re half-siblings, so it follows that they would have complementary powers.”

Jason looks mildly impressed. “I never knew that.”

“That’s the problem with Jupitus,” she says. “Fearing magic means you don’t understand it.”

Jason doesn’t have a reply to that.

Turns out, Jason is a very good commander. After determining the terrain around the seal, and the size of the Argo, he knows exactly who should be on the mission.

Problem is, Piper disagrees with him.

“Four people is not enough,” she says flatly. “I don’t care what the rationale is, four is not enough.”

“Leo to pilot the ship, Nico to find the site, Hazel to shut it down, Annabeth to oversee it.” Jason frowns at her. “It’s a balanced team; everyone has a job and no one else is placed in danger.”

“Where Leo goes, I go,” she says flatly. “Frank is going to follow Hazel. Annabeth is going to drag Percy along by his ear even if he doesn’t choose to follow. And you’re the only one who Nico actively spends time around except for Hazel and Frank – don’t look at me like that, I have eyes – so you’re coming too.”

“But – ”

“No buts!” She tidies up the maps and gives him a determined look. “If you argue with me, I will turn your hair green.”

“Why green?”

“Because you’d look so _dreamy_ with green hair,” she says, pretending to swoon. “My green haired hero, save me from the mighty beast!”

Jason lets out an attractive snort and claps a hand over his face. “Sorry.”

“My hero.”

She bats her eyelashes at him and he laughs, his whole face lighting up. He looks good, even without the green hair.

Piper rather likes him.

“Alright.” Jason stands up and offers her a hand. “We should tell everyone about the team.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Argo! We will be boarding five minutes ago, departure time now, lovely to have you on board!” Leo swings down from his perch on Festus and high fives Piper before disappearing below decks.

Nico looks up at the mast. There’s a good spot in the bird’s nest where he thinks, at a stretch, would just manage to fit him.

Just in case, he leaves his hood and tabard below, leaving him in his shirt, pants and boots. He keeps his sword with him because he does not like to take more risks than he can avoid, and he knows how far harpies are capable of flying.

He clambers up the mast and situates himself quite comfortably in the crow’s nest.

The mist below them is thick and foggy, and he can’t see past it at all. The cold air is not the only thing responsible for the chill in his veins.

Leo and Annabeth estimated that it would take four hours to get to the seal, and Nico suspects that once they get there, they won’t have much time to shut the seal. He has faith in Hazel, and in the power of her suppressed magic, but he can’t stop his hands from shaking. There are too many variables, too many things they can’t control, and if there’s anyone who knows the power that chaos holds, it’s Nico.

A flurry of movement catches his eye, and he spots a trio of harpies fly out of the mists, straight for the Argo.

“Three harpies incoming!” he yells, and almost immediately, Percy, Hazel, and Frank are circling the deck warily.

“We’ve only been in the air for twenty minutes!” Percy whines. “Seriously?”

Nico stands and swings his sword, warming his arm up, before he reaches out with his senses and feels the bones underneath the harpies’ skin. With a brutal tug, he yanks the bones in their wings, sending them into a spiral that drops them onto the deck in a heap.

The harpies don’t seem to care. Nico’s positive that the mist is addling with their senses in some way.

It’s quick and brutal, and within minutes the harpies’ corpses are being tossed over the edge.

Hazel looks mildly disgusted, and climbs up onto the mast branch to sit near him.

“Are you ready?” he asks her, eyeing her sideways.

She shrugs. “As I’ll ever be. The mist is interfering with it, though. Everything feels… deadened. Like there’s a blanket over my magic and I can’t quite feel it.”

Nico nods. He knows the feeling he’s referring to; he feels it every time he goes to Jupitus.

“Hey, what’s the seal like?” she asks. “Is it hard to find?”

“It’s enchanted,” Nico replies. “I found it the first time because I could dispel the primary enchantment, and because of my… gift, I can find it again.”

“I don’t understand.”

He struggles to find the right words. He wasn’t taught how to use magic, and he doesn’t know how to explain it other than ‘it felt right’. “The magic around the seal means that you can’t remember the precise location. But because I can feel the bones in the earth, and the break between the earth and the pit, I can locate it again, even if I can’t remember it on a map further than a general area.”

Hazel nods, thinking about this. “I think the mist has a similar property. It hides, literally and figuratively. I think… I think the seal is going to look different.”

Nico wraps his arms around his knees and rests his chin on them. “I hope you’re wrong. It was frightening enough before.”

“You’re with friends now, though.”

He laughs hollowly. “That doesn’t change a thing.”

She gives him one of her enigmatic looks that he can’t quite translate. “For a smart man, you’re so stupid.”

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

The Argo moves quickly, and before Hazel can really wrap her head around it, Nico calls down from his perch, “We’re nearly there!”

She runs the whetstone over her sword once more for good luck, and then tucks it away.

“Alright,” Annabeth says, clapping her hands to get their attention. “Hazel, you’ll be going down into the seal itself to shut it. Nico and Frank, I want you two to go with her. Leo, Jason, Piper; I’m relying on you to keep the Argo ready, safe, and able to take off on my signal. Percy and I will keep guard on the entrance and ward off any monsters that try to come through. Any disagreements?”

“Will you and Percy be enough?” Leo asks.

“Easily.”

Hazel can’t help but admire Annabeth’s cool confidence.

The Argo comes to a creaking, shuddering, halt. Leo sticks his head over the side and looks mildly surprised. “Hey, we landed right outside, no bumps or scrapes or anything.”

“Why does he sound so surprised?” Frank mutters darkly. “Not helping.”

Annabeth coughs sharply, and Frank goes red. “The mist is thick, so keep close.” With that, she climbs over the side of the ship.

Percy follows quickly, and after exchanging a look with Frank, Hazel takes a deep breath and plunges over the side.

The mist is colder and heavier on the ground, and it presses down on her shoulders uncomfortably. She can see the vague outline of the cave entrance just ahead. It looms, for lack of a better word, demanding its presence to be felt.

It stirs something in her memory.

She follows Annabeth to the entrance. It’s eerily quiet. “We’ll wait here,” Percy says, tossing his sword around and summoning a stream of water that swirls around him like a shield. “We’ll be as loud as possible if something comes, so you’ll know. If you need help, scream. One of us will come.”

Hazel nods, draws her own sword, and leads the way into the mountain.

The tunnel is smooth and straight, carved by something more than mortal hands, and she notices Nico’s tight-lipped expression as he look around. Frank walks quickly, his grip on his sword white-knuckled. She’s not the only one feeling the pressure.

“We’ll come to a door,” Nico says quietly. “Let me open it. Behind it, we’ll enter a dark hall – that’s where the seal itself is. Between the door and the seal is a chasm. It opened when I was there. We have to find a way across it before we can approach and shut the seal.”

“Leave that to me,” Frank says, rolling his shoulders.

The large double doors loom above them, and Nico steps forward, placing one hand on the left door. He shuts his eyes, and Hazel feels his magic condense as he channels it into the door. It’s dark, but not as lifeless as Hazel thought it would feel.

“ _Ygsil_ ,” he says, and the door slides open.

The halls are on fire.

The chasm down the centre is a brilliant red, illuminating the hall in a rich vermillion that makes it look blood stained. The banners on the walls are tattered and bloody, and the dais at the end is glowing as though surrounded by coals. The heat is unbearable.

Frank steps forward, brows creased in concentration, and shortly he is replaced by the beautiful dragon he became a few days ago. He blends into the surroundings, the red and gold of his scales thrumming with the heat.

He jerks his head, and Hazel and Nico quickly swing themselves over his neck. The chasm is several metres across, enough that Frank has to extend his wings and fly over. He moves like a serpent, sliding through the air rather than pushing against it, and he alights with just as much grace.

Frank has always been a little clumsy, Hazel thinks. Maybe this is why.

“There’s something in the chasm!” Nico says, suddenly, face pale. Hazel goes to peer over the edge, but Frank snags the collar of her armour with one finger and pulls her back.

“Focus on the seal,” Nico says, nodding to Frank. “We’ll take care of whatever this is.”

Hazel trusts them, and so she goes.

The seal seems innocuous enough; it’s a large dais with writing encircling it, nothing out of the ordinary compared to some of Jupitus’ temples. But there’s a malevolence that emanates from it, and it makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Okay, calm down, Hazel, you got this.”

She feels, first, reaching out to touch the magic warding the dais. It’s elusive and shy, darting in and out and around, much like the magic she was reaching for before Nico was found. So she adopts the same technique, stilling and letting the magic flow through her, become part of her core.

She closes her eyes.

She closes her eyes again.

The scene shifts, and a strange sense of déjà vu hits her.

She is standing in a sea of red.

The high rock walls surrounding her are red; the shifting sand beneath her feet is red; even the sky is red thanks to the sunset spilling across its edges.

She keeps walking at a swift pace, quickly and lightly with professional agility. Her goal is the inner area, where the tomb of something ancient and lost to time lies. The light spilling from the rapidly darkening sky is nowhere near enough to see properly, but her eyes are used to it.

Soon she reaches the doors. They are cut directly into the rock, with various glyphs etched onto their surface. Either side of the doors is also covered with inscriptions, all detailing various scenes from the history of the area. But she isn’t interested in the writing, she is here for the tomb.

She pushes open one of the doors carefully and warily. The dust on the floor is undisturbed. Either no one has entered this tomb since its creation or whoever had done so did a long, long time before now.

She lights a torch and shuts the door behind her. She doesn’t want anyone surprising her, and she knows the opening of the door will disrupt the entire crypt’s light balance, so as long as she keeps it shut, she will know if someone opens it again.

She creeps along corridor after corridor and eventually comes to a large hall. It is only lit by a single shaft of waning sunlight coming in from a skylight in the roof. In the centre is a pedestal; it is barren. The walls are smooth and clearly no traps or doors have been installed into them. She goes around the chamber a few times anyway, for one can never be too careful and her profession is not one that allows for mistakes of any kind. One can be your last.

When she is satisfied that there are indeed no hidden blades, spikes, maces or other weapons of mass destruction, she approaches the pedestal. It is short and square, almost like an altar, but there are no markings or hieroglyphics on it at all. The light from the skylight hits it directly and illuminates it, making the rest of the room darker by comparison.

She kneels down and studies it from all angles. She notices a few faint lines on the very bottom edge and brushes some of the dust off.

_Fear that which the light consumes._

She frowns and mulls over the phrase for a minute. It is clearly a warning, but also a riddle. It names nothing, doesn’t specify what exactly it is talking about. Vagueness, however, is not such a difficulty. She has dealt with worse.

She glances up at the skylight. There must be some connection between the light from there and the pedestal, or else the architects wouldn’t have bothered to put it in. Everything, even the tiniest detail, can hold a wealth of importance and information.

Light consumes the pedestal. Therefore, she should fear the pedestal. But not all of the pedestal is illuminated, so the words are clearly not referring to it.

Maybe there is something _on_ the pedestal, or had been. She places a hand in front of the beam of light and is rewarded with a sudden flash of gold. She moves entirely in front of the light and examines the object revealed, taking in its appearance and checking for more traps.

Once assured there are none she picks it up. The gold shines in the darkness, which worries her. Gold shouldn’t shine like that without light hitting it. Perhaps…

“My, you’re a clever little one, aren’t you?”

She spins, searching for the voice.

“Ah, yes, I recognise that magic. You’re the mage’s sister, aren’t you? He was clever, too. Not clever enough, though.”

“You’re Tartarus.”

The voice laughs, delighted. “You dare say my name!”

It is, then. She darts a look towards the altar again. This whole scene feels wrong.

“Yes, you’re quite right,” Tartarus says. “But this is of your own devising. You have a powerful gift, there. It seems such a shame to snuff it out.”

“This isn’t real, is it?”

“That depends on what you call real.” She gets the feeling that Tartarus is settling down for a chat, as bizarre as it seems. “It was once real. Not in your time, perhaps, but then again, things rarely are. This is not the first time I have been awakened.”

“This has happened before?”

“A long, long time ago, from when you are from.”

She frowns. “Then this is what the first seal used to look like. Then… the mist, it regresses things, doesn’t it? It makes the land older, the monsters more primal, the oldest legends real again, doesn’t it?”

“The mist is magic in its most primal form. It has not changed. When the world wants it to, it presses back and changes the world. After all, what is the most dangerous thing? It is going back, losing progress. As you say, it is regression.”

She looks down at the object in her hands. It glints as if winking at her, taunting her, teasing her.

“Is this something I can change?”

Tartarus hums. “Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. I am unchanging. But you, perhaps…”

“Do you want it to change?”

“I want to be free. I have always wanted to be free.” He pauses. “I have waited a long time for freedom, and the seals have been broken twice. Yet, each time, a dark skinned girl with light brown hair has stopped me. Has spoken with me, has manipulated the mist. You both look the same.”

He chuckles. “And both times, a little mage with dark hair has broken the seal. History repeats itself.”

Nico and her, both times. Something clicks.

“Reincarnation is not as unbelievable as you would think,” Tartarus says amusedly. “The necromancer and the witch, time and time again, even before I was sealed. You have your dreams, and he speaks the Old Tongue. This is the first time you have been siblings, though, that was a surprise. Once you were friends. Before, you were gods.”

“If history repeats itself, then I can shut the seal.”

“Your previous incarnations shut the seal.” Tartarus ponders and she feels his presence shift slightly. “Let’s see whether you can.”

She looks down at the gold. It has no shape, no substance. She cannot visualise it out of the mist. It has the same aura as all the places that Tartarus inhibits, dark and murky, except condensed. She cannot tell what it is at all.

She thinks of Frank and Nico. She thinks of Percy and Annabeth, fighting in a mist that is trying to corrupt them. She thinks of Leo, Piper, and Jason, waiting for news that isn’t coming.

Perhaps it’s not about what the gold is.

It’s about what it could be.

She takes it with both hands and wills the mist to wrap around it, shape it, pull it this way and that until it resembles a golden key.

The crypt is still. Tartarus is silent, observing.

She approaches the pedestal again. It is the dais, she imagines, the one that Nico calls the seal. But the dais itself isn’t the seal. She can see that now, after taking a look at the pedestal and it’s positioning in the room. The pedestal/dais hosts Tartarus, but it is not his prison, because if it were, then there would need to be a spell or an enchantment needed to release him.

No, Tartarus is smarter than that.

She stands, moving towards the door. In this world, one made entirely of mist and dreams, neither of them has power. But while Tartarus has experience, she has the memories of a goddess and a warrior-queen in her head.

The great doors rise above her, so similar to the double doors that Nico opened. She steps through, and turns to observe the inscriptions.

Sure enough, she cannot focus on them long enough to read them herself, but she knows what they say. She knows the power they hold.

She shuts the door and puts the key to the lock.

                        -                       -                       -                       -                       -                       -

“Frank!”

The floor is beginning to shake, and Nico’s legs can barely hold himself up. Hazel hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken, has barely breathed for twenty minutes, and every minute they spend here is a minute that Percy (and Annabeth) have to keep fighting.

Frank the Magic Dragon turns to look at Nico. He tilts his head to one side, as if to say, “What? There’s nothing we can do yet.”

Hazel suddenly takes a great gasp of air, and her eyes snap open again, her irises glowing.

“Hazel!” Nico runs over, grabbing her arm and pulling her in the direction of the doors. “We have to leave, this place is going to come down around us.”

“No, wait,” she says, holding a hand out. “We have to shut the doors, they’re the final part of the seal. I have the key.”

She opens her palm to reveal a golden key.

“We can do that, but we have to hurry!”

“No, listen to me! The doors cannot be closed from one side. We need to lock them from both sides or else the seal won’t hold.” She grasps his shoulders and demands his gaze. “Do you understand me? I have to stay on this side while you shut the door from the other.”

He staggers back, the implications hitting him like a sack of bricks. “No. No, you can’t, that’s not allowed.”

Frank shakes his head too, his neck winding around the two of them protectively as the ceiling starts to dislodge.

“I must,” Hazel says. She looks fierce and determined. “This isn’t about what we want to do, it’s what we have to do to make this work properly. I have to shut the seal, and I’m the only one with the power to move the key between the doors. It has to be me.”

Nico shakes his head, thinking furiously. “No, I won’t accept that. I’ve already lost Bianca, I won’t lose you too.” An idea strikes. “Give me the key.”

“No!”

“Yes! I know what I’m doing!”

He grabs the key, feeling its size and weight, before he concentrates on the earth below him. He can feel a similar weighted bone just below his feet, and he rips it from the ground. Within seconds, he has shaped it precisely the same way as the key is shaped.

Then, he dives further and grins maniacally, summoning the nearest corpse. It’s old, ancient even, nothing but shining bone. Oddly enough, it’s the same size as Hazel. It even feels a little like her, which is enough to tell him that he’s doing the right thing.

“You will lock the door when we are on the other side,” he commands it, handing it the skeleton key. “Under no circumstances are you to deviate from that instruction.”

The skeleton nods.

He quickly climbs up onto Frank’s neck, helping Hazel up as well. Frank looks at the skeletal warrior a little dubiously, but allows it to hand onto his wing as he soars across the abyss once again.

Frank transforms the second they’re off his back. “You’re okay?” he asks Hazel. “You haven’t got Tartarus in your head or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Hazel reassures him, looking up at him in a way that if it were any sweeter, Nico would be getting cavities. “Come on, we have to move.”

Nico gives the skeleton one last glare, before he hustles Hazel and Frank out and slams the doors shut.

“Hazel.”

“On it.”

She places on hand on the door and slides the key into the lock, shutting her eyes. He watches as the mist swirls around her and pours into the keyhole.

“ _Zareth._ ”

And, with an anticlimactic _click,_ it does.

Nico releases the breath he didn’t realise he was holding, and falls to his knees.

“We did it,” Hazel breathes. “We did it!”

“We did it!” she cries, laughing, and throws herself at Frank. Nico looks away, because his sister’s first kiss with his best friend is not something he needs to see.

He looks down at his hands and starts laughing, until the laughter turns into tears and all three of them are sitting in a heap on the floor, hugging and crying and – in Hazel and Frank’s case – kissing. They did it. They actually did it.

“What’s the phrase?” Frank asks. “All’s well that ends well?”

“That’s the one.” Hazel loops an arm around each of their necks. “All’s well that doesn’t end in our untimely demises.”

He just looks at them and smiles until his cheeks hurt.

Nico isn’t really one for lessons, nor for morals, but he does know one thing. If you find people who are willing to cross the world to find you after you’ve fucked up, and love you anyway, you hold onto them as tight as you can and never let go.

So he does.


	9. Really Amazing Royal-Authority

“So let me get this straight.” Queen Reyna steeples her fingers underneath her chin. “Master di Angelo discovered the first seal of Tartarus, accidentally opened it, and asked you two for help. You then proceeded to sneak out of Jupitus, abandon your patrol, and find him, all without permission or even a note to explain your absence. You travelled on stolen horses to Camp Jehsaedh, and met Leo Valdez and Lady Piper McLean, who owned a flying ship that allowed you to travel to Half-Blood Peak. There, you met with Commander Chase and Battlemage Jackson. Commander Chase found Master di Angelo and our own Commander Grace, and proceeded to take all eight of you to the seal to close it again.”

“Very apt, your grace,” Hazel says, bowing.

Reyna sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. She can see Octavian begging to speak. “Yes, High Priest?”

“What they did was in violation of nearly every law that Jupitus has,” he begins. “Not only that, but they all confess to have been practicing magic! Master di Angelo is a necromancer, of all things!”

“Problem?” di Angelo asks. He acts innocently enough, and obeys the formalities of the audience, but the glint in his eyes when he looks at Octavian is as menacing as they come.

“Silence! You are on trial!”

“Actually,” says Frank, piping up apologetically, “we aren’t. This is simply an audience. There haven’t been any charges pressed against us to warrant a trial, and anyway, we just saved the world. I think there’s a sub clause in the law that says that great acts of heroism shall be taken into account when mitigating a sentence.”

“Thank you, Corporal Zhang, that will be all. Octavian, sit down.” Reyna adjusts her crown and stands up. “I charge all three of you with the use of magic, defying of military orders, and treason. I sentence Hazel Levesque and Frank Zhang to five years in the army, and I will be discussing your posting with Commander Grace. As you are not a citizen of Jupitus,” she continues, turning to di Angelo, “I cannot enforce your military service. However, I can and do sentence you to work for me as High Ambassador. You must hereby co-ordinate all talks and actions between Jupitus and other cities and towns, and you must visit them all each year. All of this I decree.”

She waves them out, shoos an overly smug Octavian away, and sits back down.

“What?” she says, seeing Aurum and Argentum looking at her. “I had to do something to punish them. If it isn’t any different from what they were doing before, well, that’s not my problem.”

She sighs. “Besides, it took them two months to shut a single seal. It took me two weeks to figure out what was going on and an hour to shut this one. They need to learn.”

Aurum buts his head against her thigh and stares up at her accusingly.

“Alright, yes, I did know what they were doing. But a queen has to do what a queen has to do. And besides,” she says, giving him a scratch on the head, “if I told everyone everything I knew, I would lose my reputation.”

She smiles, eyes drifting across to the tapestry on the wall. It depicts a misty figure facing down a dark skinned warrior with golden hair spilling across her shoulders. Behind her stands two men, one small and hooded and the other tall and dressed in red and gold.

History repeats itself, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap, folks!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading this, and trust me, if you ever get the chance, do a big bang. Seriously, do it. It's a huge amount of fun and you might make friends with someone as amazing as Jenna.
> 
> Her tumblr is bluefireeyes, and mine is kitkatkimble. Come say hi and be friends, I don't bite. (I can't promise she doesn't, but that's just a risk you're going to have to take.)


End file.
